


Josh Oli at Three

by unicornwarrior



Category: Bring Me The Horizon, Of Mice & Men (Band), You Me At Six
Genre: M/M, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-29 14:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 22,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3899305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornwarrior/pseuds/unicornwarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘You know, in all these cliché love stories, they make it seem so fucking easy. You meet a girl, you fall in love, she loves you too, you marry, have babies, you’re forever happy. Right? Right. </p><p>HA! As fucking if! </p><p>First of all, girls aren’t exactly my type, if you know what I mean. Secondly, I go to one of those shitty high schools which are mainly populated by stupid jocks and annoying brats who think they’re better than you just because they have cooler cars. Fucking idiots. So, naturally, I am as closeted as anyone would get; even though a couple of friends know since they’ve caught me making out with a guy from my chemistry class in freshman year. And, lastly, I don’t really do the whole ‘falling in love’ part of life. That’s just not how I roll. Until…’</p><p>Awww, poor Joshie never would’ve expected to meet this guy. You know, the one who always sits in the back of the room in English class, scribbling angry insults on the dirty surface of his table. But he kind of does, in one way or another, and they do start talking. After a few…let’s just say, difficulties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There is a Hell, Believe Me, I've Seen It (I'm Talking About High School)

**Author's Note:**

> So, a very lovely person asked me to upload my older stories on here as well, and I'm in geography class so I'm bored out of my mind right now and I decided I should do a little something.  
> This is basically really unedited and just me rambling stupidly for about 20 000 words.  
> Please don't hate me.  
> I know this is really dumb.

It was one of those days where you just wish you’d have stayed in bed, huddled up in the fluffy covers that protect you from the evil demons who are surely about to chase you. First, I spilled my tea (yes, we ARE British) on my t-shirt, then I slipped (on the icy streets of the Californian fall) and faceplanted on the sidewalk right in front of my nosy neighbour, Mrs Jones, who probably was on the phone three minutes later, telling the old ladies from church that the awful British satanic kid next door had performed some kind of animal sacrifice on her front yard. To say I was pissed off would most certainly the understatement of the year, if not century. 

My parents, being the cruel people they were, of course hadn’t had the heart to buy me a car when we first moved across the whole fucking globe, so I had to walk to the hellhole they called school. This day was just getting better and better, really. 

And, as if I’d challenged fate, it DID get worse. As it turned out in my first lesson, I’d fucking forgotten to do my Math homework, AGAIN. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some kind of nerd who actually does their schoolwork, but my grades had been spectacularly bad in the past months and the teachers were starting to remember my name, negatively. So I started aggressively copying my friend Dan’s homework, stubbornly scribbling down numbers even though I knew I only would be able to finish it if time stopped or my hand started moving at lightning speed or something. 

By the time lunch rolled around, I was ready to cry from the frustration and disappointment I’d had to endure in the past hours. My friends were basically just laughing at me and my, as they liked to phrase it, ‘Drama Queen Behaviour’, so I declared that our friendship was over and angrily took a bite of my turkey sandwich. 

When the bell rang, signalizing that I had to haul my arse to English class, I’d already made up with my mates and gotten ready to force an hour of not understanding any of the highly intelligent crap this wanker of a teacher was talking upon myself. Of course, it was the only class of the day I had to go through alone, without any people I could talk to without wanting to hit them in the nuts and run away. Really, this country was going to make me insane one day. 

“Ah, Mr Franceschi, late again, I see. Any reasonable explanation you’d like to share?” the teacher asked me, raising his eyebrows fucking sky-high. See, what did I tell you? Fucking wanker. 

“Does ‘I was taking a piss when the bell interrupted me’ count?” I replied dryly. One day, I told myself, I was going to work on my attitude and keep my sorry arse from landing it in detention every single day. But, I concluded brightly, not today. 

“Sit down. Two weeks of detention.” He didn’t even hand me one of those detention slips. With me, he’d always wait until the lesson was over, because he knew he’d give me at least three detentions per lesson. Would it count as repeating myself if I mentioned again that the guy was a fucking wanker? Yes? Well, I couldn’t care less about what you think, so: My English teacher was a fucking wanker. 

And, of course, me being fashionably late, there was only one seat left, the one next to this weird emo kid I’d never heard talking, not even once. He was one of those people just everyone avoided due to some story some kid had told three hundred years ago, about some kind of reputation the mysterious guy had built up for himself. I wasn’t even going to question that shit, it was high school, kids talk crap all the time. 

So I dropped my bag next to the seat and sat down, not even bothering to take out my textbook to pretend I gave a shit about the random bullcrap our teacher was talking. 

You see, I wasn’t usually a bad student. I sometimes did my homework, I sometimes even paid attention in class, and I wasn’t that much of a troublemaker. But there was just something about this English class that made me so angry that I just couldn’t be bothered. Maybe it was just our teacher’s fault, though. He was a wanker, after all. 

But somehow, he still managed to interrupt my peaceful half-slumber as he said the magic words ‘group project’ and ‘assigned partners’. Of course that was like dropping a goddamn bomb or something. Loud chatter erupted form the students, the nerds in the front rows asking questions about the project themes, the girls telling their friends how they hoped they’d get a hot partner, and the people who were just too cool, like me, protesting a bit about the ‘assigned’ part. What if I’d get one of those annoying girls who tried to hit on me all the time? Or what if I got one of the stoner guys who’d let me do all the work? And damn it, I really couldn’t absolutely fail this project; my grades were bad enough as it was.

Well, shit. 

Our teacher silenced us (or, well, TRIED to) and started reading the names of the groups to us. As soon as he got to my name on his list, he very obviously had to hide a smug grin that was sneaking onto his face. Oh oh. This couldn’t be good. 

“Joshua Franceschi,” he called, “and Oliver Sykes.” 

I groaned. I should have seen that one coming. 

But that’s how all the great love stories start, isn’t it?


	2. Met a Boy at Seventeen, He Was the Biggest Arsehole Ever Seen

Of course Dan, the arsehole, would only laugh at me. 

“This isn’t funny, you twat! I’m stuck with the weird emo kid; he’ll probably kill my cat and sacrifice it to the devil if I leave him alone for a second. Honestly, the guy’s ridiculously scary.” As if to emphasise my point, I shuddered.

“You’re exaggerating, Joshie. Don’t worry; maybe he’ll turn out all right. Don’t give up on him just yet; he could be a cool guy. And hey, you’re the one who always annoys everyone with your stupid ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ thing.” I didn’t even bother looking away from the TV to flip him off. “Who knows, maybe he’s your Romeo?”

“Hey!” I yelled, throwing a pillow at Dan, “I’m NOT Juliet in that fucked up scenario. I get to wear the pants.” Dan laughed and raised his hands defensively. 

“Dude, you said that.” I flipped him off again and went back to staring at the television intently; pretending like the 2937383th episode of Skins was the most interesting thing I’d ever seen. I was, in fact, thinking about how I was supposed to work with that creepy Oliver Sykes guy. Our project theme was to write an essay about what fascinated us most about the English language. Seriously, who the hell had thought of that? Ridiculous, really. And Dan was evidently no help at all. If I’d known that he’d only laugh at me and eat all my food, I wouldn’t have invited him over after school. 

“So what are you going to do?” he asked. 

I shook my head, confused. “What?”

“About Sykes,” he said simply, like I really was the stupid one here.

“I don’t know. Probably finish the whole damn project on my own. But I’ll at least try to talk to the guy first. I won’t do this on my own if I don’t have to. Whatever, I guess,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, causing them to rub the fabric of my t-shirt against the fluffy sofa cushions. 

“Well, good luck, mate,” Dan said, pretty obviously holding back a laugh. 

“Fuck you,” I hissed and went back to watching TV. 

~ 

Honestly, this was starting to be really annoying. After spilling yet another cup of tea on yet another t-shirt I faceplanted on the asphalt yet again and almost died on my way to school as usual. Seriously, this shit had to stop sooner or later.

When I arrived, I noticed that Dan had obviously told all the arseholes about my English project problem, therefore they all started laughing as soon as I came into view. He would _so_ pay for this.

“I hate you all,” I snarled, leaning against the wall we usually hung out at and lighting up a cigarette. My mates just continued laughing as if this really was the funniest thing ever. They were such immature dumb fucks, I swear. 

After they were done laughing at me, we carried on with the at least halfway normal conversation topics, like how Aaron was going to throw a party this weekend and we apparently all had the solid goal to get absolutely and completely fucked up. I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about being stuffed into a cramped room with hundreds of gross, sweating teenagers who were most certainly going to be as shitfaced as they could get, because I knew I’d only be leaning against a wall, occasionally sipping my beer and talking to no one except maybe Dan, since, believe me or not, I wasn’t the most sociable person to ever be born, but I just didn’t want to ruin my friends’ excitement by being a party pooper and whining about how I probably wasn’t going to have any goddamned fun. 

I didn’t even feel particularly guilty when relief washed through me as soon as the bell rang. 

~

Oh God.

Really, there had to be some sick arsehole that had made it a rule for teachers to make their lessons as ridiculously uninteresting and long as possible. While some old lady carried on talking about the Second World War, I was bored enough to start counting the seconds that were still parting me from the beautiful relief the end of the period would bring. And shit; had it really only been twenty minutes? Damn it! I was just starting to be really upset when someone poked my arm. 

“Yes, Dan?” I said with an annoyed undertone, my eyebrows twitching upwards slightly as I turned to look at him. Dan ran a hand through his bleached hair and gave me an apologetic smile. 

“I’m not going to be at Aaron’s party on Friday, mate, sorry,” he confessed. I nodded. There was probably some lame family thing he had to attend on Friday, that was why he couldn’t come, I guessed.

“Of course you aren’t. And I still have to go, I suppose?” I asked grimly. 

“Yes. You should socialize a bit, Josh, or you’ll land your sorry arse in the back of the class with the stoners,” he warned, giving me a cheeky grin. I was too lazy to even raise my hand high enough to flip him off, thanks to the tiring, monotonous monologues or teacher was torturing us with. He didn’t say anything else, so I just proceeded counting the seconds until finally, the fucking bell rang, eventually putting us out of our misery, and the teacher shooed us away, off to lunch. 

My friends were still fairly excited about the party like the huge nerds they all were, so that was pretty much the only thing they were talking about during lunch. When that was over and I was forced to attend yet another stupid English lesson, I was, once again, ready to scream. (You can probably see some kind of pattern that’s drawing through every day I’m describing here.)

Naturally, this wanker of a teacher scolded me for being late again, talking some awful shit about how I had to start working harder if I actually intended to pass his class, but he let me off the hook after a couple minutes and told me to take a seat. 

Me being late again, I had to sit next to Oliver like yesterday, but he still didn’t even glance up from drawing on his desk. This project was going to be just fucking great, really. 

“Now, you have the rest of the lesson to talk to your partners and maybe start working on your project. Go,” the teacher said, and once again, loud chatter started filling up the room as everyone pulled their chairs over to their partner, making horrible screeching sounds in the process, and started babbling about things that were absolutely not school-related. The only people who weren’t moving were Oliver and me. 

“Joshua, Oliver, is there a problem?” Mr Green questioned smugly.

“No sir, everything is just peachy,” I replied with a bitter smile. 

“Great, now I suggest you start working on your project, boys,” he said in a final tone. 

I sighed and started pulling my chair over to Oliver’s desk. By now, he’d stopped scribbling on his desk and had resumed staring into space with an angry, brooding expression. Jesus, he was acting as though someone had killed his cat, eaten it and claimed it tasted like chicken. 

“Hello, Oliver,” I greeted in the friendliest voice I could muster. 

His reply kind of just sounded like a muffled grunt as he buried himself deeper in his emo fringe, still glaring into space.

“Hello, Oliver, I’m Josh,” I repeated more persistently, my voice becoming slightly sharp around the edges.

When he still didn’t reply, I let out a groan of frustration. “Please, Oliver. I can’t afford to fail this class, and neither can you, presumably. So it would be nice if you could at least try to cooperate, alright?” I did my best to give a weak smile, though I was basically screaming at the arsehole on the inside, telling him to finally shove his head out of his butt and quit being an annoying little cunt. 

“Mate, _please_ , I don’t have the fucking patience for this,” I said, anger slowly starting to show. I couldn’t help myself; this guy was just making my blood broil. (Not in a gay way, please, people. We’re five pages into the story, contain yourselves.)

“Oliver,” I hissed, but still didn’t receive an answer of any sort. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, come on,” I groaned exasperatedly, leaning back in my chair. “Could you please at least talk to me? I didn’t do you any harm, so stop treating me like I killed your fucking cat or something.” He just shoved his fringe aside for a second to give me an annoyed roll of his eyes then proceeded to go back into his unmoving state. 

“Alright, arsehole. Have it your way,” I hissed and turned away, staring off in the opposite direction until the lesson was over. 

And that, kids, is how I ‘met’ the one and only Oliver Sykes, and that is how an amazingly lame love story began.


	3. Making Progress (or Losing Your Shit)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say.   
> This story is the first one that I wrote, and English is only my second language, so please don't hate me. I'm sorry.

“The guy’s such a cunt, it’s not even funny, really,” I complained, but Dan only continued laughing at me. I grabbed one of the greasy cafeteria potato chips and chucked it at him, resulting in Max almost falling off his seat because of the uncontrollable giggles coming out of his mouth after he’d seen Dan’s face when the chip hit him right on the forehead, leaving a gross smear of fat on Dan’s pimply, greasy skin. 

“You know what? Fuck you, Joshua,” he said, but the statement sounded kind of half-arsed since he was smiling at me. He was so obviously still sorry about not being able to make it to Aaron’s party, it wasn’t even funny.

“Anytime, Daniel,” I replied, sticking out my tongue at him, only receiving a roll of his eyes as a reply.

Suddenly, I felt someone poke my arm. It turned out to be Alan, who was giving me a shit eating grin and cocking his ginger-haired head to the side.

“Look, it’s your new favourite person,” he mocked. I didn’t even have to look what he was pointing at, I already knew it was Oliver. 

“God damn it, the guy’s such an arse,” I ranted, eyeing the food placed in front of me warily. Cafeteria food was so awfully disgusting in America, nothing remotely comparable to the lunch in my old school in Weybridge. 

Only when our conversation had moved on from my incredible dislike of a certain Oliver Sykes, we were interrupted by the stupid bell, obnoxiously announcing that it was time for us to haul our arses to our next period, which, in my case, of course, was fucking English. With the teacher who was a wanker. Fucking hell.

This time, I actually managed to make it on time, but I _still_ had to sit next to Oliver since we were supposed to start working on our projects today. 

“Alright, you have the rest of the period, go,” Mr Green said, and everyone turned to work. It was a lot quieter than yesterday since the students were mostly busy squinting at their laptop screens and occasionally typing three words, but there was still a little chatter floating through the small classroom.

I, of course, once more desperately wanting to make a fool out of myself, tried talking to Oliver again.

“Hi, Oliver. So, we didn’t start out all that great yesterday, so maybe we can try again and actually _do_ the fucking project,” I said, maybe a bit more intently than I’d wanted to. Oliver let out a deep, dramatic sigh and jerked his head to get his dark, dyed hair out of his eyes. I noticed that they were a warm, brown colour, but filled with a look of pure distaste. 

“Just leave me the fuck alone,” he hissed. His accent sounded not American at all, maybe Australian or British, but sort of fucked up altogether. Paired with the slight lisp that was lacing his words, it was almost impossible to decipher what the hell he was even saying. Oh, great. 

“Hey, you talked to me! We’re making progress,” I replied stubbornly. If I’d gotten him to talk, I’d maybe even get him to say something _nice_. 

“I mean it, leave me alone. I’m not doing this fucking project thing with you, so fuck off,” he growled, causing me to roll my eyes. 

“Alright, mate. I’ve been particularly patient with you; any other person probably would’ve earned themselves a punch in the dick by now. So if you could just drop the fucking ‘mystery emo person with snakebites and black fringe’ act, that’d be just great, since I’m losing my shit right now.” To emphasise my point, I gave him a very serious, angry look. 

Oliver looked up again, gave me an annoyed deathglare, and went back to staring into space and biting his lip rings. 

I let out a deep sigh. 

This was getting _really_ frustrating. 

~

“Are you not making any progress?” Dan asked, shoving another cigarette in his mouth. 

“Mate, quit fucking smoking in my room, my mum will get pissed off again,” I hissed, trying to subtly avoid talking about Oliver, _again_. 

“Oh, fuck off, it’s not like she actually would give her little Joshua shit for _anything_ , really,” he groaned and lit up despite my heavy protest,” Anyway, quit trying to change the subject. Sykes still hasn’t talked to you?”

“Yeah, he has,” I mumbled and shoved my hand into the bowl with the crisps, only to find it empty. “And you’ve eaten all my food again, fat arse,” I said. 

“He talked to you? That’s great!” he exclaimed, ignoring my comment. 

“No it’s not, he only talked to me to tell me to fuck off,” I replied exasperatedly. “Now, can we please talk about something other than Oliver fucking Sykes? I know you’re trying to get me laid and all, but…”

“But he talked to you. That’s definitely making progress.” 

I really didn’t know why I even bothered inviting Dan over any more. He really just ate all my food, smoked all my cigarettes, ignored everything I was saying and gave me shitty advice. After all, though, all my friends were arseholes, so. Whatever. It’s not like inviting Max over would’ve been that much of an improvement.

“No it’s not. And he’s Australian, I think,” I said, just to say something. 

“That’s interesting. Someone told me that he moved here from Yorkshire or something,” Dan said, suddenly sounding absent. 

“Yorkshire? Yeah, maybe. I didn’t really pay attention to his accent, though, because I was too busy thinking about how he was fucking insulting me. So. Change of subject, Daniel, and put the fucking cigarette out.” He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke and raised an eyebrow at me. 

“Why are you trying so hard not to talk about the boy? Is it possible that my little Joshie has a crush?” he asked tauntingly, still not stopping to blow smoke all over my room. It was disgusting, really. All my clothes and my bed would smell like I was the worst chain smoker if Dan didn’t stop it. 

“No, Dan. Oh my God, just leave me alone.” 

“You’re blushing, dear.” 

“Your gay is showing, _dear_ ,” I shot back, getting up from the carpet on the floor of my room, and started walking towards the door. 

“Yours too, Joshua,” he giggled from my bed. I raised my hand to flip him off over my shoulder whilst I left the room, promptly running into my mother.

“Have you been smoking, Joshua?” she asked in her ‘I’m-angry-with-you-son’-voice.

I groaned, not even bothering to deny.


	4. And There Goes My Sanity

Okay, alright. It was Friday morning. I had exactly eight lessons to sit through until I could go home, then I’d only have to attend Aaron’s stupid party and then it’d be weekend, I’d catch up on all the school work I was behind on due to various afternoons I’d spent smoking weed with Alan and Austin instead of doing my homework, and probably write the whole fucking English assignment by myself. 

But before that, I actually had to force myself through an English lesson with the teacher who was a wanker, and Oliver Sykes, who was possibly also a wanker. 

“Get over it, Franceschi, it’s not like he really did anything besides telling you to shut up,” Dan said reassuringly, but I just glared at him. I was still mad because of the smoking thing. My mother had confiscated all my cigarettes and sadly _not_ grounded me, so I _still_ had to go to the fucking party. 

“Right, and we tell you to shut the fuck up all the time and you don’t go apeshit on us,” Alan added, grinning and flicking his orange hair out of his eyes. What an opportunistic fucker. Yesterday, he’d been all ‘Yeah sure fucking Oliver Sykes grrraaahr, the God Of Cats may haunt him forever’. 

“Fuck you, no one asked you, America,” I growled and chucked a chip at him. Alan just flipped me off and continued shamelessly hitting on Austin, who was blushing furiously within the course of five seconds. Christ, someone tell those guys to fuck already. 

“Alan’s right, though,” Max interfered. 

“CAN WE, FOR FIVE MINUTES, NOT TALK ABOUT HOW I DO NOT LIKE OLIVER SYKES?” I asked angrily, receiving a couple of dirty looks from the people around us. It was whatever, not like I cared, I was the weird British prick anyway.

“Why? It’s really funny to see how you totally have a crush on the guy, but still pretend to hate him, even though you _so_ want to get in his pants,” Alan threw in, causing Austin to look even more confused. 

“What are we even talking about?” Chris asked tiredly, taking a sip of his water. 

“About Joshua’s undying love for a certain Oliver Sykes,” Dan replied with a knowing smirk. 

“You know what, fuck you all,” I groaned and buried my face in my hands. 

~

“Alright, arsehole,” I yelled. 

This time he’d really taken it too far. First, he’d ignored me, maybe for the half of the period, then he’d just told me to back off in the most impolite way, resuming to ignoring me right after. I’d tried reasoning with him, tried threatening him, tried being nice, but it just wasn’t working. Considering there was a teacher present, and it was a teacher who really fucking hated my guts, maybe yelling at Oliver hadn’t been the smartest idea. But whatever, I was so fucking angry, I didn’t even fucking care.

“I tried everything, I was nice, I was an arsehole, now fucking tell me _what I’ve fucking done to you_ , prick! I haven’t done any fucking thing to you, that’s what I’ve done, and you’ve been treating me like a fucking piece of shit all the time! Now fucking tell me, what the _hell_ is your problem?” 

Oliver just sat there, hiding underneath his hair, not giving me as much as a fucking glance. 

And that was when I just went fucking nuts on him. Furious with his persistent silence, I drew my hand back and punched him square in the jaw. Which, admittedly, hadn’t been the best idea I’d had in my life, but it was so, so worth it. Girls were shrieking, guys were yelling, all the funny things. 

“Joshua Franceschi! Get off him!” Mr Green, the fucking wanker, shouted at me. Still furious albeit a bit scared of myself, I took a step back and looked over at my teacher. 

“Yeah, I know the drill. Off to the principal, a lifetime detention, probably suspension,” I snapped at him and turned to leave. 

“Well, since you know it all so well, you might want to show Mr Sykes the way,” Mr Green said smugly and looked at Oliver demandingly. 

“What? What did I do? _He_ fucking hit _me_! I didn’t do anything!” he yelled, outraged.

“Oh, so you _can_ fucking talk,” I hissed bitterly. 

“Don’t be so dramatic, both of you. Off to the principal, NOW.” 

I just left without further protest, but I was silently pleased with myself for having dragged Oliver into this as well. He at least deserved to be bitched at.

As I walked through the hallway, I could vaguely hear the sound of footsteps following me, but I didn’t pay any attention to the noise until I Oliver fastened his pace and suddenly, I felt my back hit the wall. I was trapped between Oliver’s scrawny body and the lockers, a lock digging into my spine uncomfortably. His eyes had darkened noticeably and were now piercing into mine coldly. 

“Are you happy now, you fucking prick?” he asked quietly, far too close for my liking. I didn’t really think before raising my hands to his chest and pushing him off me, although I congratulated myself for doing it later, because if I hadn’t pushed him away, I probably would’ve shoved my tongue down his throat, being the kinky bastard I was. 

“Fuck you, Sykes,” I hissed and continued my way towards the office, not glancing behind even once to see if he was still following me. 

~

Naturally, my mother wasn’t exactly glad about what I’d done, but she was aware that I’d done worse and didn’t even ground me, but she mostly did that because she knew how much I wanted her to since I hated parties with a passion. And, well, how much I despised leaving my room altogether. 

A couple of minutes before Alan was supposed to pick me up and ship me off to the party, I was still fairly preoccupied since my parents found it necessary to give me a lecture about how violence never was the answer and I needed to solve my problems by talking about them rather than punching my project partner in the face, even if he was a prick. 

Then the doorbell rang, and I reluctantly walked over to let Alan in so my parents could ask him questions about his life and why his hair was so orange. 

“What’s up, United Kingdom?” he greeted and walked past me without further ado. 

“Very original, ginger princess,” I snarled and followed him into the living room, where he was already busy kissing my parents’ arses. I kind of loved my friends, to be honest. 

“Yeah, sure, we’ll be back by one, I won’t let your son drink. Don’t worry, Mrs Franceschi, we’ll watch out for little Joshie,” Alan said, with just an edge of sarcasm in his voice, but luckily, my parents didn’t notice. 

“Alright, Alan. It was nice to see you again, now have fun, boys,” mum said and shooed us out the front door. I really hated her sometimes.

“So, dude. Ready to get absolutely fucked up tonight?” Alan asked as soon as we were sitting in his car. 

“Oh yes,” I replied.


	5. Skins Got It All Wrong

Aaron Pauley was one of the cool cats. I was still wondering how we’d actually managed to become friends at some point, but we just sort of bonded over shared chemistry homework in sophomore year, and I was still thankful for that. Due to my friendship with Aaron, I always was invited to the cool parties with the cool kids and the alcohol and the hot chicks. The only disadvantage was that I, in fact, hated parties with a burning passion. 

So I was leaning against the wall, occasionally sipping my beer and watching as other people became more and more shitfaced, just like I’d predicted. I wasn’t drunk enough to slur or anything stupid like that, but I’d drunk enough to feel the light buzz of the beer so I wouldn’t have a problem rejecting girls who were trying to hit on me. 

All my friends, including Alan and Austin (who’d disappeared together, really), were gone, so I was on my own, as usual. I was just drinking my third beer as Aaron walked over to me, pretty obviously the furthest away from sober as someone would ever get. 

“FRANCESCHI! You are not having fun!” he yelled and draped an arm around my shoulders, leaning onto me for support. 

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I’m just tired, mate,” I replied, subtly trying to sneak away from him, but he noticed and tightened his grip.

“But Joooooooosh,” he whined, “You must have a good time!” 

I smiled weakly and shook my head. “It’s fine, Aaron, I’ll just get Alan and drive him home.” 

“NO! I will not allow you being bored at my party! Come on, let’s get you drunk,” he suggested, dragging me off towards the kitchen. 

Well, actually, it didn’t seem like a bad idea. Getting drunk, that is. It was how those parties always ended up for me. I’d be bored, then chug down a couple of mixed drinks, get absolutely shitfaced, make out with someone random and wake up the next morning with a killer headache and no memory whatsoever of what had happened the day before. 

~

So I did get shitfaced. And I probably also made out with someone, preferably some slutty girl, because I always got miraculously straight as soon as I was drunk. And I woke up with the worst headache in the world. On Aaron’s couch, luckily. 

“Painkillers,” I shouted to anyone who would hear me. 

I heard a laugh coming from the direction of the kitchen and it sounded suspiciously like Aaron’s, but seconds later someone took my hand, dropped a couple of painkillers on my palm and pressed a bottle of water in the other one, so I didn’t feel the need to be an arsehole. I didn’t waste any time to thank the mysterious painkiller-fairy as I raised my hand to my mouth and swallowed the pills, washing them down with hasty sips of water.

After a couple of minutes or hours or whateverthefuck, I felt the headache start to faint, so I decided I was ready to open my eyes. The light immediately made it worse, bit I knew I had to get home somehow, considering my parents were probably expecting me there by noon. As soon as I got my eyes halfway open, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one in the room.

Max was passed out on the fluffy chair next to the couch, Alan and Austin were tangled up together somewhere on the floor and Chris and Matt were sprawled over two of the chairs at the dining table, slowly sipping coffee with straws and scowling at Aaron who looked like he was having the time of his life. The arsehole was never hung over, it was ridiculous, really. 

“Fuck everything,” I croaked, causing everyone who was awake to laugh, only to stop and clutch their heads in pain. 

“Welcome back, Joshua,” Aaron squeaked, and I slowly raised my hand to wave my middle finger at him before carefully placing my feet on the floor and hauling my arse off the couch. 

“Morning,” Chris said miserably. 

Matt hummed something agreeable and continued slowly sucking on the straw.

“Time?” I asked. 

“It’s half past nine, you can stay here for lunch. We’re ordering pizza,” Aaron explained, not even bothering to lower his voice in order to not wake anyone up and possibly kill them. He just kind of was an arsehole like that.

I only nodded instead of replying since I wasn’t really feeling like talking. 

“Here’s your phone, by the way, Max confiscated it yesterday to keep you from drunk dialling,” he added and handed me my mobile phone. I’d gotten 12 texts from Dan, asking me if I was having fun, and, sorry again that he couldn’t make it. With an annoyed groan, I slipped the phone into my pocket and asked Aaron to give me coffee. 

~

Even though teasing Alan and Austin about the hickeys on their necks was _hilarious_ , it got old at some point, so we collectively decided to watch a movie on very, very low volume and wait until the pizza would arrive. 

Around twelve, Dan dropped by to ask us how operation ‘nursing our hangovers’ was working out for us and laughed at how miserable we all looked, of course not without apologising about not having been there for me and promising he’d bring me a box of cupcakes later to make up for being a shitty best friend.

Alan dropped me off at home around three, as soon as I was feeling relatively human again. Naturally, my mother rolled her eyes and sent me to my room to sleep off my ‘absolutely not-hangover-related-headache’ and promised she’d wake me up for dinner. 

~

Through the entire weekend, I successfully ignored the fact that I had a fuckton of homework to do and spent most of my Saturday asleep and most of my Sunday listening to music and playing stupid ego shooter video games. 

By the time Sunday evening rolled around, an agonizing headache was crawling through my skull, so I ended my xBox session and slowly hauled myself down the stairs to get food and painkillers. 

I found the living room to be empty, as well as the kitchen and all the other rooms I looked in, so I concluded my parents had gone out and had decided to tell me while I’d been still mostly asleep. Shrugging to myself, I started going through the cupboards in order to find anything edible, but as always, I ended up just pouring cereal in a bowl and sitting down on the couch because I was too lazy to walk up my room again. After once more deciding that American television was the stupidest thing to ever be invented, I settled on watching some boring horror movie I’d seen approximately three million times. 

Of course, as soon as I’d gotten comfortable and started shovelling the cereal in my mouth, the damn doorbell rang. I considered not opening the door, but maybe it was Dan with food so I got up anyway.

And it indeed was Dan, with the promised box of cupcakes in his hands. 

“Here,” he greeted, pointing at the box, and walked past me without as much as a Hello. 

“Get out of my house, Daniel,” I whined and followed him into the living room where he was already making himself comfortable on my couch. 

“Goddammit Flint, if you light up in here I will fucking murder you,” I hissed and tore the pack of cigarettes out of his hand, throwing it to the ground. 

He just shrugged. 

“How’s the hangover? You’re bitchy enough,” he said, opened the box and took a bite of one of the cupcakes.

“I hate you,” I grumbled, but sat down anyway and took a cupcake as well, not as much as glancing at the abandoned bowl of cereal on the coffee table. 

“Start working on your English project yet?” Dan asked with an evil glint in his eyes. I just flipped him off and turned my attention back to the TV, but he wasn’t having any of that. Soon enough, the TV screen went black and I turned to glare at Dan, who was holding the remote control and smirking at me. 

“No, I haven’t started working on my English project yet,” I pressed through clenched teeth, “Are you happy now?” 

“Nope,” he said in an amused tone, “I’ll be happy if you tell me what your punishment for whacking Sykes across the face is.” 

I rolled my eyes. “I have detention,” I replied simply. 

“Aaaaaaand?”

“Alright, I have guidance counselling sessions as well,” I conceded.

“Alone?” Dan gave me a wide, shit eating grin.

I buried my face in my hands. “No,” I admitted with an exasperated sigh, “Together with Sykes.”


	6. How Are We on a Scale of One to Ten?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is unedited, so please tell me if there are any embarassing mistakes :D

The periods before lunch seemed to drag on even more than usual, just to mock me and the fact that I’d have to work on my English project _in the guidance counsellor’s office_ together with one of the biggest arseholes I’d ever met in my entire British life.

Naturally, my friends only laughed at me after making me repeat my punishment for ‘indecent behaviour in school’ over and over again. 

“Fuck you all,” I groaned, pulling a tomato out of my sandwich and chucking it at Max. 

He couldn’t even raise his hand high enough to give me the finger, he was laughing so hard. 

“Fuck you all so much, I hate you with all I have,” I said and got up, shoving the last bite of my sandwich in my mouth and turning to leave.

“Goodbye, arseholes,” I said and grabbed my backpack, slowly starting to make my way out of the cafeteria. I really, really didn’t want to go to the guidance counsellor’s office. She’d probably go all therapist on our arses and make us talk about our feelings or some shit like that. 

Of course, Sykes was already there when I tore the door open, talking to the lady with a low voice and basically hiding behind his fringe again.

“Fuck this,” I greeted. 

“Sit down, Joshua,” the counsellor said. I wasn’t in a particularly rebellious mood today, so I just did what she said and dropped down on the chair next to Sykes’, who instantly started shuffling away. 

“So,” the lady started, giving us both judging looks. “Why did you hit Oliver, Joshua?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s Josh,” I corrected impatiently. 

“Alright, Josh. Why did you hit Oliver?” she repeated in her awful American accent. 

“Because he deserved to be hit,” I replied heatedly. 

“No, he didn’t. No human deserves to be victim of unprovoked violence,” she scolded. Fuck this, seriously. 

“Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. Only that in this case, it wasn’t unprovoked,” I said stubbornly. “He was absolutely provoking me.”

“And how was Oliver ‘provoking’ you, Josh?” 

“I tried being nice, I really did, but he just didn’t react to anything I said. Only once, he told me to fuck off, but other than that, he didn’t react, at all.”

She nodded. “I see.” I could tell by the look she was giving me that she kind of really hated both of us and herself for making the stupid decision of working with high school students. 

“Alright, boys. I can see that there is a lot of unresolved tension between the two of you.” Oh, someone give that woman an award, she’s a motherfucking genius. “Therefore we need to find a way to get rid of all the tension and the negative feelings that you two have toward each other, and by the end of this you will be best friends, I’m sure.” Sykes and I both let out a snort at that point. Sure, best friends. Absolutely. 

“Fine. Now, for the rest of our first session, I want you two to let out your emotions, tell each other what angered you the most about the other’s behaviour before your little…argument.” 

I let out another snort. “We didn’t really…argue. You know, for an argument, there have to be two people who are actually fucking _talking_.” 

“Oh, so you don’t like it when Oliver doesn’t talk to you?”

“No, I love to ask people something, only to have them stare off into space instead of fucking answering me,” I hissed, voice dripping with sarcasm, but directed the last part towards Sykes, who groaned and flicked his hair out of his face to glare at me. I noticed that his lip was busted and there was a slight shimmer of purple on his high cheekbone. I couldn’t help silently congratulating myself. 

“Well, I fucking told you to leave me the fuck alone, so why didn’t you fucking listen to me?” he snapped. 

“Hmmmm,” I replied, “Maybe because we have to do a fucking English project together that makes up 40% of our marks, and I’m already _this fucking close_ to having to repeat the fucking class!” 

“Not. My. Fucking. Problem.”

“But mine!” I yelled, “And I don’t know what harm I’ve done you ever before, but it’d be nice if you could’ve at least tried! I just need a fucking D on this project, nothing big! But no, Mr Mysterious has to fucking ruin it all!” 

“Alright,” the guidance counsellor cut across me, “Maybe not that much emotion. Let’s all just take a deep breath and then think about what our biggest problem with the situation was.” 

“Fuck you!” Sykes yelled, ignoring her, “You fucking hit me, that’s what you did!”

“ _After_ you refused talking to me!” 

“Oh my God! I know people like you _exactly_. As soon as you don’t fucking get what you want, your knickers are in a twist and you take it out on everyone in your environment.” 

“You aren’t even making any sense! Will you just tell me what your problem is already?” 

“You are just an arsehole, that’s my problem! As soon as I refuse talking to you, you just assume that you have the right to hit me!”

“But _why_ did you refuse talking to me?”

“’Cause you are one of the cool kids! For me, that’s reason enough to hate you!”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” I screamed, jumping off the chair and pushing it back a little harder than intended. “Are we done now?” I asked the counsellor forcefully.

“No,” she hissed, “We are not done. Sit down, Joshua, _now_.” I reluctantly complied, in all honesty being a bit scared of her sudden outburst. 

“Alright, boys. This is obviously not working. So I want you two to take a deep breath, count to ten, and then apologise to each other for being so rude,” she said, her tone still angry. 

I inhaled deeply and counted to twenty, just in case, until I opened my eyes again and looked at Sykes.

“I’m sorry for punching you,” I lied. 

“No you’re not, you prick!” he yelled, and the lady let out a sigh.

“Alright. I think this is enough for today,” she said exasperatedly. “The period will be over in five minutes, anyways. I trust you two to not start punching each other as soon as you leave the room. Now go.” 

We both got up and left, of course not without me slamming the door behind myself. 

~

“Seriously, Sykes can suck my cock, the guy’s such an arrogant little prick, it’s ridiculous,” I ranted. Dan nodded understandingly and switched off the TV. 

“Tell me everything, Joshie-boy,” he said with a slightly mocking undertone. I ignored it, though, and continued whining about how Oliver Sykes was the worst thing to ever exist.

“He told me that he hates me just because I’m ‘one of the cool kids’. And all the time during detention, he gave me this ‘You killed my cat and ate it’-look.” I even did air quotations, that’s how lame I am. Dan snickered, almost making my legs slip off his lap where I’d comfortably placed them ten minutes earlier.

“Yeah, you’re so cool, you have, like, ten friends in the entire school,” he said.

“That’s ten more than he has,” I argued.

“I wouldn’t say that. I’ve talked to Matt Nicholls or whatever the hell that guy’s name is, and he said that he and Sykes are kind of friends and that there are a couple of people who hang out with them.”

That was strange. I didn’t know why, but I’d always pictured Sykes as the kind of person who was sort of ‘over it’, not even bothering with things as human as ‘having friends’. He did seem like kind of an outcast, to be honest.

“I don’t even care, Dan. Can we please watch stupid American television again?” I suggested, and he shrugged.

“I’m only trying to help you, dear,” he said.

“And that, mate, is why everybody thinks you’re gay as a pole,” I told him and turned my attention back to the TV screen, when Dan shoved my legs off of him. 

“Fuck you mate,” he snapped, but then gave me a shit eating grin. 

“Later, hun,” I promised, and a muffled laugh came from the other side of the sofa.

“You guys are so gay,” Alan said, and went back to shoving his tongue down Austin’s throat.

“Oh, look who’s talking,” Dan hissed. 

“Wait, they’ve been here all along?” I asked confusedly, shook my head and eventually went back to watching TV.


	7. In Which Josh and Oli Have Absolutely Nothing in Common (Except They Kind of Do)

“So what is it that bothers you most about Oliver ignoring you?”

“Maybe the fact that he was _ignoring_ me, like I’ve been telling you for the past twenty minutes.”

“Joshua, you know I don’t have any time for this.” 

“I never asked you to waste your precious time on me. Sadly, we’re stuck here.”

“Just answer my question, damn it!”

“Alright! I just don’t like the feeling of being ignored, alright? I don’t like it when I talk to people and they treat me like I’m fucking _air_ or something. Happy now?”

“Are there any bad childhood memories that you may have associated with being completely ignored by Oliver?”

“No, for fuck’s sake! How many times do I have to tell you, there is nothing wrong with my parents, my childhood was fine! I just don’t like being ignored by people, especially if I did nothing to piss them off.” 

“Joshua, you do realize that you denying this hard may hint that there is something that happened don’t you?” 

“Or, maybe, it could hint that nothing happened?” 

I heard a snicker from the direction of the door. 

“Oh. Oliver, please come in. I think we’re done for now, Joshua. Please wait outside, though, I want to talk to the both of you by the end of this session.” I nodded and left the room, not even bothering to bite a snarky comment in Sykes’ direction. All I wanted was to get out of there, really. Without having to deal with Sykes ever again, preferably. 

I slammed the door behind me noisily and leaned against the wall, slowly sinking towards the ground. This was all giving me a headache. It was ridiculous. When I’d punched that arsehole Jerry Roush in the face in sophomore year, no one had made me go to the guidance counsellor to talk about it. So why bother this time? It wasn’t like there was any way we’d ever be friends, anyway.

The time seemed to drag on even slower than usually, probably because I was just sitting in the school hallway and glaring at everyone who walked past while Sykes was in the office, most certainly talking nasty shit about me. 

After maybe twenty minutes, the door flew open and Sykes poked his head outside. 

“Hey, Franceschi. Come in here,” he yelled at me, and I stood up and followed him without protest, or even an insult, for that matter.

“Boys,” the lady said in a disappointed tone, as if she was trying to figure out how to figure us out. “I don’t know what drove you to be violent toward the other with either words, or in Joshua’s case, even fists. But I want you two to apologise again, this time for real.”

“I’m sorry I punched you,” I repeated, this time almost sincere. I was sorry. Not really for punching him, but for doing it in class. If I’d done it after school, we wouldn’t have gotten caught. 

“I’m sorry I ignored you,” Sykes replied half-heartedly.

“Can we go now?” I asked the counsellor. She nodded, so I got up and walked towards the exit, finally. 

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned as soon as the door had slammed shut behind us. 

“Yeah,” I agreed, “If that stupid cunt still thinks we’re going to be friends, she’s even dumber than I thought.” 

“Yeah! It’s not like we have any fucking thing in common!” We both looked down at the shirts we were wearing today. I had a black Slipknot tank on and, well, so did he. After sharing a silent look we quietly agreed that we hadn’t seen that and that _we had nothing in common_. 

“Right!” I almost yelled, “And I mean, I fucking punched you in the face! It’s kind of childish to think that we could be friends.” 

“Well, fuck you, Franceschi,” Sykes said and turned to leave.

“Fuck you too, Sykes,” I replied and walked away. 

~

“There’s going to be _another party_?” I asked, sighing exasperatedly. 

“Yes. And you’re going to be there,” Dan decided in a final tone. 

“Like fuck I am, Flint. Now leave me alone,” I said. 

“Mate, you invited me over,” he pointed out and took another sip of his coke.

“Yes, and now I can’t get rid of you,” I replied and grabbed the TV remote from where it had been digging into my arse uncomfortably. I contemplated switching the channel, but I highly doubted that there would be anything good on around three in the afternoon. This was America, after all.

“I’m not really the social butterfly kind of guy. Why don’t you just go there with Max and Chris and Matt and Alanaustin?” (Alan and Austin had been pretty much attached at the hip ever since Aaron’s last legendary party, that’s why we didn’t even bother separating their names anymore. We were working on one of those stupid names that celebrity couples always had, too. Right now, we were trying to decide between ‘Austlan’ and ‘Alstin’, but it was pretty clear that the former had already won the race.) 

“Because I want you to be there instead of moping in your room alone on a Friday night. You’re seventeen, you need to get off your arse and try to make friends,” Dan explained, lighting up a cigarette. 

“Mate, if all my possible friends are like you, I’d rather die alone, thanks,” I said bitterly and snatched the cigarette right out of his mouth. After taking a few drags, I put it out in the ashtray that I, being the smart person I was, had placed there in case Dan felt like getting me into trouble again. 

As if he hadn’t heard anything I’d said, Dan carried on talking. “Also, I’d feel sort of responsible if you died alone. I don’t want you to die alone, you’re too pretty for that.”

“Okay, my gaydar is basically going fucking nuts now, so shut up.”

“Mate, you’re gay yourself, so isn’t it going nuts, like, _all_ the time?” Dan looked up at me with an eyebrow raised so high that it was almost touching his bleached blond hairline.

“How about ‘get the fuck out of my house while you still can’?” I snapped and lit up a cigarette for myself. I was going to need a lot of nicotine if Dan would stay here any longer. Which he probably was, considering there was still food in the fridge and cigarettes in the pack. 

“Well, whatever. You can bring Sykes to the party, it’ll be fun, for sure,” he said evilly. 

I chucked the nearest object that I could find at him, which just happened to be one of those ugly, fluffy cushions that my mom had placed all over the couch. 

“Fuck you, Daniel Flint,” I hissed and switched the channel to Gossip Girl.


	8. Tell Me More, Tell Me More!

“Joshua,” she said, her upper lip jutting forward lightly. 

“Yes, for fuck’s sake?” I asked tiredly. 

“Tell Oliver something about yourself,” she demanded. 

“No,” I replied stubbornly. 

“If you don’t talk like normal people, you are not going to become friends.” 

“We don’t _want_ to be friends,” I replied. 

“But you are going to try,” she said, “And now _tell Oliver something about yourself_ , or I am going to do it for you.” 

I gulped. She was probably going to just open my file and tell him the first thing that was standing in there, which would most certainly be that I’d gotten caught making out with some guy instead of going to class in sophomore year, which would result in him knowing that I was gay, which would result in him making fun of me, which would result in me wanting to die. 

“I guess I like movies,” I confessed. The counsellor nodded and motioned for me to carry on. “Like, uhm…Fight Club?” I bit my lip, hoping she’d be satisfied with my answer, but she still only gave me an encouraging nod. 

“It’s, uhm…a really great movie?” I tried, and Sykes still didn’t react. 

“Oliver, what is your favourite movie?” she asked, trying to come across as patient, but I could hear that she was starting to get pissed off again.

Apparently, Sykes had noticed, too, because he mumbled something vaguely sounding like ‘anythinwithJohnnyDepp’ under his breath. “Pardon?” - “It’s anything with Johnny Depp, really,” he repeated, this time almost sounding like a normal human being. If his accent wasn’t the stupidest thing to ever exist, seriously. 

“Good! Joshua, what do you think about Johnny Depp movies?” she asked with a fake cheery voice. 

“He’s fucking gay,” I replied. Haha, good one, Josh. You’re one to throw stones, aren’t you? 

The guidance counsellor (yeah, I still hadn’t bothered to find out her name, problem?) gave me a disapproving look, pretty obviously thinking about my file with various records of me showing off my sexuality a bit too openly. She seemed like she considered telling Sykes the truth, but luckily, she decided against it eventually. 

“Whatever,” Sykes muttered under his breath, then he went back to moping. Alright, I could play that game if he wanted to. 

“Well, are there any hobbies that you share?” she asked hopefully. 

No one answered. It was kind of sad, really.

“Look, boys,” she sighed, “I’m not exactly looking forward to our daily sessions in here, and I’d appreciate it greatly if you two would just make up already and get over whatever hatred that’s brooding inside of you so you can go back to your English class and I can go home early.”

Silence. 

She groaned. 

~

“Alright, Sykes,” I snarled, having to restrain myself from pushing him against the lockers. I settled for giving him a deathglare that I had been practicing in front of the mirror for days now, but it didn’t seem to intimidate him. 

“We’ll do it like this: We pretend to be friends, we get out of there quicker. I do our English project, you pretend to have helped me. Do we have a deal?”

He, of course, didn’t bother replying. Stupid son of a fuck. 

“I said _do we have a fucking deal_?” I asked again. 

Sykes eventually turned to look at me through his stupid fringe, his dark eyes clouded and angry. 

“Fine,” he spat, “We’ll act like best friends for two weeks, she’ll let us out, you never talk to me again.” 

I nodded curtly, then turned to leave.

“Goodbye, _Josh_ ,” he called after me, a bitter undertone sneaking into his words.

“See you, _Oliver_ ,” I replied, sounding just as fake as he did.

This was going to be so much fun. 

~

“So, you’re saying that you and Sykes are going to pretend to be friends to get out of the counselling sessions and back to English class? Dude, didn’t you say that your English teacher is a ‘wanker’?” Alan asked confusedly, taking another bite off his sandwich. 

“Yes, but the biggest wanker in the world is nothing compared to Oliver Sykes,” I replied. 

Alan turned to Austin to roll his eyes at him, thinking I didn’t see him, while Dan started giggling uncontrollably, like a teenage girl being told a dirty joke at a sleepover with friends. 

“Why are you giggling like a preteen girl? And why are we always talking about my non-existent relationship with Oliver Sykes? Why are you so annoying?” I asked, letting out a frustrated sigh. “My life is so hard,” I added, just for the flair of the dramatic. 

“Jesus, Josh,” Austin groaned, “Calm down, we’re just fucking with you.” I suppressed the urge to make fun of his terrible American accent when he’d said my name, although it did sound ridiculous. He’d always draw out the ‘o’ and turn it into some sort of mixture of every single vowel, just like Alan, Aaron and…well, any other American person did. 

“Shut up, you pussy. You’re the one who’s always complaining about him,” Dan laughed. 

“You, Daniel Flint, are a fucking imbecile. Go fuck yourself, all of you,” I announced, getting up yet again to walk to the guidance counsellor’s office. 

Even though they hadn’t intended for me to overhear it, a mutter of ‘he and Sykes are so going to fuck’ reached my ears as soon as I’d taken a couple of steps. 

“I heard that, arseholes!” I called over my shoulder, without looking back, and left.

~

Remember when I said that the understatement of the year would be if I said that I was pissed off after eating shit in front of my fucking stupid neighbour’s house? Yeah. I got a new one.

Sitting next to Sykes, who was busy chewing at his nails, had turned into the worst agony I’d ever had to endure in my entire life. He kept dropping snarky remarks as soon as the counsellor turned her back, or kicking my shin under the chairs, only because he knew that I couldn’t do anything about it if I wanted to carry on with our plan. To say that I was pissed off now would be the understatement of the century, if not entire universe. 

“So, boys. I see that we’re making progress. Oliver, you said that you liked music. Are there any certain genres that you like most?” 

“Metal, punk, I don’t fucking care, as long as it’s good music.”

“Well, what is your favourite group, then?”

“I don’t…The Misfits? I guess? They’re…cool.” 

“And, Joshua, what is your favourite band or group or whatever kids call it these days?”

“The Misfits, too, I suppose,” I tried. It actually wasn’t, it was the Foo Fighters, but now we at least had something to pretend to talk about. And I liked The Misfits, I really did. Sometimes. If they weren’t doing some weird shit with their hair. Or, you know, their faces. 

“That’s great! There’s something we can talk about!” she exclaimed, letting out a small sigh of relief. “What is your favourite song?” 

“American Psycho,” I said quietly, praying that it was a song actually _by_ the Misfits, and not something I’d gotten mixed up in my head. It was also the only song I could associate with the Misfits and horror punk and all that shit, but you didn’t actually need to know that. (Good job, Josh, you idiot.)

Sykes’ gaze snapped up, jumping to my face for the first time since I’d met him. “Really?” he asked, sounding as close to excited as someone with snakebites and black hair could get. 

“Yeah,” I replied uncomfortably, “It’s…a great song.” 

Sykes seemed to regain his cool as he gave me a short nod and looked back at the ground. “It really is,” he agreed. 

The guidance counsellor was smiling like a child who’d gotten an ice cream cone recently now. She really thought that this was her doing. How adorable. 

“Well? Are there any other musical preferences that you two may share?” she asked with a ridiculously cheerful undertone.

“I don’t fucking know, you tell me,” I grumbled to myself. 

“Joshua,” she scolded weakly. 

“Slipknot,” Sykes muttered. 

“Queen,” I replied quietly. 

His gaze shot up once more. “I don’t want to have to like you,” he whined. I raised my eyebrows at him, still wondering if he’d been serious, but then the corners of his mouth twitched into something that could probably count as a small smile, if you were being very…imaginative. 

I almost returned his smile, but then I remembered that this was fucking _Oliver Sykes_ and not a person to fucking _smile_ at. 

“We’re getting somewhere,” the guidance counsellor said, her voice barely above a sigh, but strongly underlined with relief. 

“We’re not getting anywhere,” I grumbled. I _did not_ like Oliver Sykes, in any way.


	9. Those Things are Getting Almost as Long as Fall Out Boy Titles

Well. I was pretty fucked up. 

Not in a ‘I’m so fucked up, look at me putting all my beautiful emotions in amazing art’-way, but in a ‘I’m so fucked up, look at me downing ten more shots until I fucking pass out on Aaron Pauley’s floor again’-way. 

The worst part, though, was that I was usually a pretty funny drunk, except when I’d drunk and smoked pot, which always made me really giggly and ridiculously honest. And guess what? I’d smoked two joints after downing three shots of vodka and three beers. 

So that was why. 

No other reason.

“I don’t want to fucking _like_ the guy,” I whined. Dan nodded understandingly as he peeled a half-naked cheerleader off his lap. 

“Tell me everything,” he demanded and took a couple of sips out of a beer bottle. At this point, Dan would probably count as ‘heavily intoxicated’, whereas I could only be described with ‘drunk off my sorry arse’, so maybe it would’ve been good to watch out what I was saying since Dan would most likely remember everything in the morning. 

But me being the moron I was, I didn’t watch out what I was saying. 

“Excuse me?” the girl asked, but Dan shut her up with a swift gesture of his hand, then he motioned for me to get on with it. 

“Well, we agreed that we’ll try to pretend like we don’t hate each other in the counselling sessions, and then he, like, told me he liked Queen and shit,” I said, my face twisted in to a disgusted expression.

“But where’s the problem?” Dan asked confusedly.

“Well, the problem is, if I like him, I’ll want him to like me back, and if he doesn’t like me back, I’ll want to bang him cause I always want what I can’t have, and I don’t want to want to bang him,” I explained. Maybe it made sense, maybe it didn’t. Either way, I was really, really drunk. 

“But,” Dan spoke up after a few seconds of silence, “Doesn’t you thinking about it mean that you already want to bang him?” No, he was definitely not drunk if he was that articulate. Dan tended to communicate in only slurs and other strange sounds when he’d had more than a couple of beers. 

I shook my head. “Goodness, no. I can’t want to bang him. It’ll be a disaster and I’ll eat three fucking boxes of ice cream and watch Nicholas Sparks movies again, just remember the one time I was drooling over this guy from the football team. I don’t want to get fat,” I complained. 

“But what if he wants to bang you, too?” Dan asked. 

“He doesn’t,” I said stubbornly.

“He’s an emo with snakebites,” Dan raised his eyebrows at me. “Tell me, mate, how are the chances that he’s straight?” 

I scrunched up my nose. “He said he liked Johnny Depp movies,” I admitted.

“He’s as straight as a rainbow, and you’re hot,” Dan confirmed and waved the half-naked cheerleader over to continue shoving his tongue down her throat, which most likely meant that he no longer wished to have this conversation with me. “For gay lads, anyway,” he added between playing tonsil hockey with the girl and groping her arse. 

Alright. Fine. 

“Fuck you, Dan Flint,” I slurred and chugged another shot of tequila. 

~

“I’m never getting drunk _ever_ again,” I exclaimed. By ‘exclaim’ I mean ‘whisper really aggressively’, of course. 

“You say that after every party, dude,” Alan groaned from the couch above me. 

“Fuck you, fucking imbecile,” I yelled at him. By ‘yell’ I mean ‘whisper even more aggressively’, of course. 

“I think I’m dying,” Austin added from somewhere on top of Alan. 

“I think I’m good,” Aaron’s ridiculously cheery voice called from the kitchen. 

A lot of groaned, angry insults were thrown at him in reply. How this arsehole managed to never be hung over, no one knew. 

“Josh is in love with Oliver Sykes,” Dan announced from the floor, somewhere. 

“Fuck everything,” I said and closed my eyes to go back to sleep. 

~

“Alright. What did you do this weekend?” she asked.

“Went to a party,” I muttered.

“Of course you did,” Sykes spat venomously. 

“Got absolutely shitfaced, nailed some lad and kicked him out as soon as the sun rose,” I added with a roll of my eyes. It was meant as a joke, but the look Sykes was giving me implied otherwise. Although that was probably because I’d slipped that I was gay. I was such an idiot, I swear.

“Lad?” he asked, eyebrows almost touching his hairline.

“Well, you wouldn’t know, would you?” I replied playfully, passing it off as a joke. Hopefully, he believed me. And he did.

“I’m sure that not even gay guys would sleep with you,” he spat, and went back to studying the inside of his stupid fringe. 

“Oliver,” the counsellor said, her eyes lighting up with a brief flash of anger. She knew that I was gay. She considered telling him. This was all so ridiculous. “You can go for a second, I would like to talk to Joshua, alone,” she ordered. 

Sykes got up and left without as much as a whisper, probably because he really wanted to get out of here. 

The moment the door had slammed shut behind him, the counsellor started looking at me with something that could only be described as vaguely calculating in her gaze. 

“Why did you not tell Oliver about your sexuality?” she asked. 

Of course she would ask that. She had no fucking idea.

“Cause I don’t want him to know,” I said, unable to stop my forehead from twisting into a frown and my eyes from darkening noticeably in anger. 

“Buy why don’t you?” she continued.

“Cause he’s pretty obviously going to give me shit for it, and I’m not exactly willing to put up with that,” I explained half-heartedly.

She sighed exasperatedly, burying her face in her hands. “Joshua,” she groaned as she surfaced again. “I know this sounds really unprofessional, but have you looked at Oliver? He doesn’t strike to me as the person who could be homophobic in any way.” 

“Yes, but he doesn’t like me, and he’ll tell people that I’m gay. I don’t really want the school to know.” 

“You can’t be friends with him if you keep something of this much importance from him.”

“I don’t want to be friends with Sykes,” I insisted. 

She let out another deep sigh and ran her hands through her hair, a gesture that screamed ‘I don’t fucking know anymore’. 

I shook my head and got up from the uncomfortable blue plastic chair, picking up my backpack from under the desk. 

“I’ll leave now,” I announced. She didn’t try to stop me as I walked the door and turned to go to my next class that was going to start in five minutes, but I froze before I could take the first step. 

“Oh my God,” I exclaimed. And by ‘exclaim’ I mean ‘yell at the top of my lungs with the most shocked expression on my face while burying my fingernails in my palms until I almost draw blood’. 

“Well,” he smirked. “I think we have something to talk about.”


	10. Cause Baby Honestsly, it's Harder Breathing Next to You

“You look…debauched,” Dan said with a knowing smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. 

“Fuck yourself,” I snarled and plopped down on the couch.

“Tell Uncle Dan what happened,” he demanded and sipped his coke gingerly. I couldn’t help but find it a little creepy how he’d referred to himself as ‘Uncle Dan’. 

“You’re not going to believe it when I tell you, and I’d rather forget, thank you,” I replied and buried myself deeper into the ridiculously fluffy couch cushions, hoping I’d just suffocate and never have to leave the house ever again. 

“Alright, dear,” Dan said and turned back to the TV, only averting his eyes from time to time to pour himself a new drink or shovel a handful of crisps in his mouth. 

After a few agonizing hours of silence and Dan trying not to pry, he broke and directed his gaze at me again.

“Now tell me, arsehole,” he demanded, and I sighed.

“Fine,” I murmured in defeat. “It all started after the fucking guidance counselling session…”

~

“Well,” he said, “I think we have something to talk about.” 

“No, we don’t, not at all,” I hissed at Sykes and went to shove past him, but he gripped my arm firmly and yanked me back. 

“Yes, we do,” he said in a final tone. His lips had curled into a devious grin by now and he was looking me up and down pretty obviously. 

“So you’re a faggot,” he decided eventually. I raised my eyebrows, not knowing how to reply to that. 

Finally, I settled for denying. I could always try. “No I’m not,” I pressed through clenched teeth. 

“Yes you are,” he insisted. 

“No I’m not, you’re the faggot. Now leave me the fuck alone,” I snapped and tried walking past him once again, but he closed his hand around my wrist one more time, this time not letting go after yanking me back in. 

“Really?” he asked challengingly and took a step closer towards me. 

~

“Shit Josh, get to the point already!” Dan yelled impatiently, completely forgetting about the Gossip Girl reruns on TV that he’d (I’d) wanted to watch so desperately. 

“If you’ll shut the fuck up, I will!” I snapped at him. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. “But you’re dragging shit out cause you don’t want to tell me.” 

“No I’m not!” I exclaimed, even though we both knew that it was totally absolutely and completely true. 

“Yes you fucking are, now carry on, you twat.”

“Alright.” 

~

“Really?” he asked challengingly and took a step closer to me. 

“Really,” I confirmed and went to step back, but my back hit the wall.

“So you don’t, at all, enjoy it when I’m this close to you?” he asked. He now was leaning his forearms against the wall behind me, invading my personal space far too much for my liking. 

“No, not at all,” I lied. 

“Are you sure?” he muttered, his hot coffee and smoke breath hitting the side of my throat as he leaned down a little so his eyes were on the same level as my lips. 

“Yes,” I breathed. 

~

“Shit, is this going to get porny?” Dan asked. I hadn’t missed the excited undertone in his voice, so I scrunched up my nose and gave him an odd look.

“No it’s not, arsehole. Let me tell the fucking story and then start judging, you imbecile.” 

“Sorry, this is just really exciting,” he said with a knowing smirk on his face.

“You’re such a cunt, Daniel Flint,” I snarled at him, then tried to remember what I had been trying to say when he’d interrupted me so rudely.

~

“Yes,” I breathed. 

“Well, what if I don’t believe you?” he asked. He kept coming closer and closer, until his nose was almost touching my Adam’s apple. 

“Then that’s your problem,” I tried to snap, but failed. It resulted in coming out kind of jumbled, since he’d chosen that exact moment to let out a sharp breath that was now brushing past the hem of my shirt and down my chest, where it slid warmly over the skin and eventually came to a halt above the waistband of my boxers.

“Leave me alone,” I whispered, but he just kept leaning in closer. My pants were starting to become tighter rapidly. 

~

“This is amazing entertainment!” Dan exclaimed as he reached for the remote control to switch off the TV.

I raised my hand to flick him in the forehead, merely because he was annoying me. 

Of course my mother chose that exact moment to walk into the living room.

“Joshua! What are you doing?” she yelled. 

“Sorry, Dan,” I said quietly, mainly to get her out of my hair. 

“It’s fine, _Joshua_ ,” he replied with a shit eating grin on his face. “Now carry on, dear.” 

“I don’t want to tell you the ending, it’s much more fun this way,” I mused and cuddled myself deeper into the couch. 

“Joshua James Alphonse Franceschi,” he said in a firm voice, “Tell me what fucking happened.”

“Watch your language in my house, Daniel!” my mother called from her spot on a chair at the dining table.

“Sorry, Mrs Franceschi,” Dan said with one of those ridiculously angelic smirks that always made adults believe that he actually _respected_ them. Dan was such an idiot, I swear.

“It’s fine,” she replied generously and resumed to reading her book. 

“Whatever,” I huffed. “I’m not going to tell you, you’re mean to me.” 

With that, I switched the TV back on and continued watching Gossip Girl, but the episode had lost its appeal since I’d missed almost the entire thing and didn’t have a fucking clue what was even going on now. Great, just great. 

“Josh,” Dan whined. 

I was most certainly going to tell him anyway, but I felt the need to make him beg. It was much funnier this way.

“I’m sorry for being an arsehole to you earlier and interrupting you all the time, now go ahead,” he pleaded.

“Language, Daniel,” my mother scolded again.

“Sorry,” he muttered, not really paying attention. 

“Alright,” I gave in. 

“Fucking finally,” he sighed in relief.

“Langu-“

“Sorry,” he cut her off and looked at me expectantly.

~

“Leave me alone,” I whispered, but he just kept leaning in closer. My pants were starting to become tighter rapidly. 

“What if I don’t want to?” he asked, dangerously close to my ear.

“I-“

~

“Goodness, Joshua, you’re killing me!” Dan called.

“You promised not to interrupt me, you idiot!” I yelled at him, but he just wouldn’t shut up.

“Oh my God, did you fuck? Did he disappear? Did you like it? Did _he_ like it? Joshua!”

“La-“

“Sorry!” he repeated half-heartedly. I rolled my eyes at my mother, but didn’t give her any further attention. She was used to the conversations Dan and I were not at all trying to hide from her. 

“Listen to the damn story, Dan, or I won’t tell you anything,” I hissed, gritting my teeth.

“Sorry, go on,” he said. 

“Fuck you,” I spat, and moved my attention back to the TV.


	11. Cause Baby Honestsly, it's Harder Breathing Next to You, Part II

“If you don’t tell me what really happened, I’m just going to assume that you had sex with Sykes, and tell everyone I know about it.” 

“You won’t, Dan, we both know that, dear,” I said with a knowing smirk.

“Whatever.” 

~

“Josh is an idiot,” Dan announced as soon as my arse had touched the uncomfortable cafeteria chair. I rolled my eyes and placed the brown paper bag with my lunch on the table. 

“It’s always nice talking to you,” I said and took a bite off the turkey sandwich my mother had made for me today. 

“Why is Josh an idiot?” Alan asked, surfacing from where he’d been kind of buried in Austin. 

“Because he won’t tell me the end of the damn story,” Dan explained, then resumed to sulking. 

I rolled my eyes again and went back to eating my lunch. 

“What story?” Aaron asked cheerily. I didn’t know why, but everything Aaron said sounded kind of cheery, it was ridiculous, really. Even when any normal person would be pathetically hung over, or worse, even if it was _Monday_ , Aaron was happy and chirpy. 

“Yes, what story, _Josh_?” a smoky voice asked from behind me. 

I turned around to see a face that was entirely consumed by a taunting expression and a lip with black snakebites twisted into a shit eating grin.

“Fuck off, Sykes,” I hissed at him, but he didn’t listen to me. Instead, he kept coming closer until he was standing beside me, far too close for my liking, and leant close to my ear despite the disbelieving looks my friends were giving him.

“But why, honey?” he pouted. 

“I think you owe us an explanation,” Dan eventually piped up.

“Probably,” I agreed, pushing Sykes off me.

“I’ll leave you to do that. Goodbye, sweetheart!” he exclaimed and pranced out of the room. 

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes for a second to recall the memories of yesterday’s… _encounter_ with Sykes.

“Alright, listen up, I’m not going to tell you twice.” 

Dan looked up with a hopeful expression on his face.

~

“I-“

Suddenly, the warmth of his body that had been trapping me against the wall was gone. Sykes was now standing a couple of feet away from me, a taunting grin twisting his features. 

“You’re gay,” he pointed out simply, and I couldn’t do anything besides stare at him with a dumbfounded face. 

“Oh God, Franceschi, this is getting better and better,” he marvelled, but then he turned to leave.

“Sykes!” I called after him. He halted and looked at me over his shoulder.

“Yes?”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” I begged.

“Oh, I won’t,” he promised.

Then he left without further ado. 

~

“Wait, so Sykes knows that you’re a faggot?” Max asked confusedly, “And he said he wouldn’t tell anyone?” 

“Yeah, I’m just as mindfucked,” I replied. My gaze was firmly directed towards the sandwich in my hands, but I didn’t feel hungry anymore, so I was just slowly picking apart the different layers of the meal.

“Well, maybe he likes you too?” Dan suggested, which only resulted in everyone laughing at him.

“I don’t really think so,” Austin chimed in, “Sorry Josh.” 

I shrugged my shoulders. “Whatever.”

“Oh, fuck,” Dan groaned, giving me a manly pat on the shoulder. “I’m going to buy you ice cream and Nicholas Sparks movies.” 

I nodded gratefully. “Thanks.” 

~

“So, tell me boys, what do you want to be when you grow up?” she asked.

“Grown up,” I replied bitterly.

“Just as gay as Franceschi,” Sykes added in his usual monotonous voice. 

“Do you have a problem with Joshua’s sexuality, Oliver?” the counsellor asked. My urge to whack her across the fucking face had never been bigger than in that exact moment. 

“No, of course not, I want to be just as gay as him,” he replied. It was strange how he’d say the worst insults and meanest jokes and his voice would still sound as if he were announcing his grandmother’s death. 

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Oliver, but I have zero tolerance for homophobic humour,” she said impatiently. This was probably the first time in the shitload of times that we’d been forced to spend our times here that I didn’t think she was a stupid bitch. Actually, I kind of loved her right now. But only for a couple of seconds, because what she said next made me want to get up and tear her fucking head off her shoulders. 

“So if you’ll excuse me for a second, I will leave the room for five minutes, and you two will openly talk about your sexuality.” 

“What?” I protested, but she was already out the door.

“Nope,” I said, “I’m not going to talk to you.”

Sykes just shrugged and gave me an unimpressed look. 

After a few minutes of expectant silence, both of us waiting for the guidance counsellor to come back, we realized that she was probably listening to us and didn’t hear us talking. 

“She’s not going to come back until we talk about this,” I pointed out. 

“Then leave,” Sykes said. 

“Alright,” I replied bitterly and got up.

Of course, the door was locked and wouldn’t budge.

“It’s fucking locked,” I hissed, turning back to glare at Sykes, who just shrugged again.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting slightly. I could feel anger starting to well up at his stupidly blank expression.

“I don’t fucking know, _anything_ would be nice. I can’t stand to look at this fucking deadpan anymore,” I grumbled and plopped back down on the stupid blue chair.

“I can’t stand to look at your face all day either, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid,” he grunted and proceeded picking at his nails.

“Fuck you, Sykes,” I hissed at him. I could practically _hear_ him roll his eyes next to me. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he asked tauntingly. 

“No,” I lied, “I wouldn’t.” 

“You’re blushing, Franceschi,” he pointed out. I suppressed the urge to avert my gaze and wait until my cheeks would cool down and glared at Sykes with the angriest expression I could muster at the moment. 

“Fuck you, Sykes,” I repeated dryly. 

“You said that already,” he told me with a smug expression. “But that’s probably cause you’re at a loss of words since I found out what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” The words sounded particularly jumbled and messed up with his accent and I had to take a minute to decipher what he was even saying. Or, rather, trying to say. 

“Or maybe it’s because I’m just sick of your shit,” I replied coldly. I still didn’t look him in the eyes, though, afraid that he’d call my bluff. 

“Whatever, dear, we both know the truth,” he said with a snicker. “You don’t need to hide anymore.” That would’ve been such a nice thing to say, right? Yeah, if it hadn’t been for the voice that was thickly laced with sarcasm and the evil grin splitting his face. 

Suddenly, just when I was about to reply, the door flew open and the guidance counsellor walked in, a small smile on her tanned face. 

“Alright, boys. Enough for today, go back to class,” she ordered and shooed us out the door. 

I left without saying anything else to Sykes. 

~

“Oh my God,” Dan sighed. He got up and walked towards the kitchen, baggy jeans slipping down to bunch somewhere below his arse. Normally, I would’ve checked him out, but I was too miserable for that. 

“Oh my God,” he repeated as he plopped down again, handing me a box of ice cream. 

“You weren’t staring at my arse,” he observed, scooting closer to me. “Shit, this is bad.” 

By the time the credits of _A Walk To Remember_ were rolling, I was snuggled up to Dan, rubbing my snotty nose and watery eyes on his black tee and his arm was draped around me, hand patting my shoulder in a really manly way. 

“I really, really want to bang Sykes,” I whined. Dan pulled me closer. 

“It’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly, once again patting my shoulder. 

“But it won’t!” I whimpered into the fabric, “He doesn’t like me!”

“You don’t like him either,” Dan reminded me.

“He has snakebites and he likes Queen. I don’t need to like him to want to bang him,” I explained, as if Dan was the stupid one here. 

Dan sighed exasperatedly and tugged me closer to his chest.


	12. This is the First and Last Time (That's What She Said)

So, uhm. The first time it happened it was an absolute accident. 

You could say that I stumbled and accidently fell tongue-first into Oliver Sykes. 

It really wasn’t intended, I swear. Alright, maybe - 

~

“Oh my God, Josh,” Dan said, breathing heavily. 

“Shut up! We talked about this! You have to stop interrupting me all the time if you don’t want me to call Austlan and talk to them!” I yelled at him. He raised his left hand defensively while using his right to shovel another forkful of rice into his mouth. 

“Sorry, mate. Carry on,” he requested, and gave me an apologetic smile. I just rolled my eyes, but started talking again anyway.

~

Alright, maybe it wasn’t _that_ accidental, but whatever. It wasn’t my fault, anyway, considering it had been Sykes who’d thought it was a good idea to smack my arse when I was walking by. And it sort of also was the guidance counsellor’s fault for letting us go early. 

However, it didn’t exactly matter at the moment since, you know, Oliver Sykes’ mouth was pressed against mine, hot breath brushing past my lips and curling around my tongue, giving me a small taste of his delicious scent. 

Well, of course there was something more to it. The way I’d yelled at Sykes to keep his filthy paws off my bum, the way he’d just stood there and watched me go all red and angry and last but not least, the way I’d shoved him against the wall in order to give my rage a little bit of room. And then the arsehole had just kissed me.

So that was how we’d ended up here. 

So, yeah.

This wasn’t the most normal day. 

~

“Jesus,” Dan exclaimed, the rapidly cooling Chinese food abandoned on the plate in front of him. “This is either the best porn or the worst love story I’ve ever heard of.”

I rolled my eyes at him before taking another bite. 

“May I continue now, or do you want to proceed staring at my mouth in a really creepy way?” I asked smugly. 

“Go on, sorry, mate,” Dan said, picking up his fork again and starting to eat. 

“Alright.” 

~

Sykes was pressing close to me, his lanky frame trapping me against the lockers, thin arms cutting off every opportunity for me to flee. Not like I wanted to, honestly. 

His slightly chapped lips were moving against mine, tongue begging for entrance as he licked my bottom lip over and over again, but I wouldn’t give in. I mentally high-fived myself for that. So I did have _some_ dignity left. 

“So…” Sykes whispered against my lips, “You don’t seem to hate me that much now.” 

I was quick to press closer and silence any other words that were possibly going to come out of his mouth in the next three seconds, but Sykes pulled away to give me a cheeky grin. 

“Eager, are we?” he murmured, the soft vibrations of his throat brushing against my Adam’s apple.

And that was when I finally fucking woke up. 

I regained control over my body and thoughts. Raising my hands to Sykes’ chest, I considered for a second. Did I want this?

A voice in my head screamed _’fucking hell, no you idiot, you just haven’t gotten laid in a long time, if you’d have wanked yesterday evening this probably wouldn’t be happening’_ , but the part yelling _’fucking hell, yes you idiot, and also BONER BONER BONER BONER’_ had become significantly louder by the time - 

~

“YES! You did sleep with him!” Dan exclaimed, causing me to whack him across the head with a pil-low. 

“Shut up, you imbecile! I wasn’t even finished yet! Could you not jump to conclusions, for one time?” I yelled. 

Dan had started sulking, right hand rubbing the spot where the pillow had met his bleached blond hair. 

“Daniel, stop it,” I sighed. “Or you’re never going to hear the end of this.” That seemed to help him snap out of it up and he looked back at me with an expectant expression.

“Alright.”

~

…had become significantly louder by the time I’d mustered up the strength to push Sykes off me. I may have regretted it a teeny tiny little bit, but the bigger part of me was really happy I’d done that. More or less.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” I spat with all the venom I could find in the back of my voice, which wasn’t that much, even for a goody-two-shoes British teenager. But whatever, I was trying, I should get a gold star at least for that. 

“What if I won’t?” Sykes asked, although I’d already untangled myself from his arms and started making my way down the halls. 

“Fuck off,” I snapped and continued walking, trying not to glance back over my shoulder more than four times. (I didn’t want to seem _that_ desperate. Don’t get me wrong, I was pretty desperate, but not that desperate. I just hadn’t gotten any action in a long-arse time. Happens to the best of us.)

Luckily, Sykes didn’t follow me and I could walk out of the school building without suffering from a nervous breakdown. I called Dan as soon as I got home and asked him to skip the last couple of periods with me to feed me ice cream and watch _Dirty Dancing_ with me at least three times. (I’d moved on to Patrick Swayze movies due to the lack of action in Nicholas Sparks books.)

~

“Which brings us here,” I finished my story. Dan was basically staring at me like I was a purple uni-corn that had just jumped down from a rainbow. 

“You,” he said, voice cracking. 

“I,” I repeated, searching the couch for the remote control although I knew that Dan probably had it stored somewhere under his arse. 

“You made out with Oliver Sykes,” Dan observed, blankly staring off into space. “And you pushed him off, you fucking cunt.” 

My eyebrows shot up. “You’re my best friend, arsehole, you’re supposed to support me in whatever I do,” I reminded him. 

“Right. Sorry. But you’ve been complaining about how you wanted to bang Sykes so badly. And yet here we are, watching Baby dance with this slimy disgusting person,” Dan explained. 

“Yeah. But if I bang him, he’ll leave me alone, and I kind of don’t want him to,” I whimpered. “And Patrick Swayze is not slimy disgusting,” I added to defend my favourite movie’s honour. 

Dan obviously had to bite back a groan as he slumped deeper in the couch. “You’re such an imbecile, Josh,” he pointed out, just when the TV had started blasting _Time Of My Life_. 

I quietly sang along with the song, causing Dan to reach over and whack me across the back of my head. “Stop trying to change the subject, idiot,” he hissed and withdrew his arm from its comfortable position around my shoulders. 

“Hey!” I exclaimed.

“No,” he said defiantly, “I’m not going to snuggle you if you keep being a prick like that.” 

I let out a small noise of complaint and hugged a cushion instead. 

“Fuck you, Dan Flint,” I mumbled and fixed my gaze firmly onto the TV screen.


	13. Skins Got It All Wrong, Part II

Yeah, so. 

Remember when I mentioned me being drunk off my arse?

Yeah, that. 

And remember when I mentioned me getting all emotional, clingy, self-pitying and touchy-feely when I’d drank red wine? Oh, I didn’t mention that? Well, I tended to get all emotional, clingy and touchy-feely when I’d drank red wine. Which was why I usually avoided getting anywhere _near_ any sort of red wine, but Dan and I had been feeling exceptionally classy that night. 

Also that. 

“I’m kind of in love with the guy,” I slurred. Dan gave me a sad smile and a not-all-that-manly pat on the shoulder while sipping wine out of a red solo cup. 

“Yesterday you said you just wanted to bang him,” he reminded me. 

“Yeah, but he fucking kissed me, arsehole,” I whined and chugged another cup of the disgustingly sour liquid. 

“And you pushed him away,” Dan said. 

I raised my hand to give him the finger, but lost my motivation halfway there and just sank back down to the floor where I’d been wall-flowering the shit out of everyone for the past twenty minutes. 

Aaron Pauley really had to stop throwing crazy parties every weekend or I’d become an alcoholic at the age of seventeen. My mum probably wouldn’t be very pleased with that. 

“Goodness, Josh,” Dan sighed and took a seat next to me, pressing his eyes shut for a second. 

“I’m hopeless, Dan,” I whined. 

He seemed to get slightly annoyed at that. More than slightly, actually. Annoyed enough to tear the red solo cup from my grip, chug the remainder of the wine (which was a lot since I’d just filled it up a second ago) and get up again, pulling me with him. 

“Shut the fuck up, Josh, and at least try to get laid.” 

I downed a couple of mixed drinks and did as I was told. 

Also, I think I blacked out at some point.

~

It felt like kind of a déjà vu when I woke up the next morning, somewhere sprawled out on Aaron’s couch, with Austlan somewhere on the floor and an agonizing headache thumping against the inside of my forehead and temples and _fucking brain_. 

After a few hours, minutes or years I violently opened one eye to take in (and disrespect) my sur-roundings. Max was still out cold on the chair opposite of the couch and Chris and Matt were sitting at the dining table, once again sipping most likely cold coffee with straws. 

Aaron was in the kitchen, quietly humming to himself while drinking his own coffee. I had to restrain myself from yelling at him to quit being happy. 

The only difference from the last time was that Dan was sitting on my feet with the biggest grin on his face. 

“Goodness,” I groaned, “Who did I drunk-dial?” 

Dan only chuckled evilly and resumed to texting someone in a ridiculous speed. 

“Fuck, what did I do?” I asked again, but still, no one would answer me. “Max!” I yelled. He only snickered and focused back on his coffee. 

“Dan,” I whined. “Please.”

“You didn’t do anything, you just whined about how you are in love with Oliver Sykes and basically want to hold hands with him forever,” he explained, and I let out a sigh of relief. 

“Oh, and Sykes was there,” the ginger-haired half of Austlan added from the floor. 

I buried my face in my hands. “What?” I asked quietly, cheeks burning in embarrassment. I heard another evil chuckle from somewhere at my feet (Dan, most certainly), but decided to ignore it and curled up on the couch, hugging my knees tightly and therefore causing Dan to fall off gracelessly. 

“It’s alright, I don’t think he even heard you,” Dan tried reassuring me, patting my shoulder again.

“What was he even doing here?” I asked desperately. 

“Probably the same thing everyone else was doing here,” Aaron yelled from the kitchen, “Getting drunk and hitting on someone. Oh, and I invited him.”

“But why does he talk to you and not me?” I whimpered. 

“Probably because I didn’t punch him,” Aaron pointed out and plopped down on the couch next to my head. 

“Go fuck yourself,” I hissed and snuggled up to Dan, who wrapped his arm around my shoulder protectively.

“Thanks, no, I’m straight,” Aaron replied casually and switched on the TV, which instantly started blaring some stupidly American commercial. I immediately clutched my head due to the wave of pain the loud noises were sending through my skull.

“Why does everyone like you?” I whined and earned some agreeing groans from Austlan on the floor. 

~

As usual, I walked (or crawled, however you want to put it) home around noon after eating pizza with my stupid friends and Dan decided to sleep over at my place tonight. 

“Is your dad being a dick again?” I asked tiredly as soon as we were chilling on the couch and eating ice cream again. On the TV screen, _Grease_ was playing on indecipherably low volume and my cold feet were tucked under Dan’s arse, which didn’t seem to bother him as much as it should bother a straight seventeen-year-old. 

“Yeah,” he said with a sour expression. “He told me that _’I can’t spend my entire life playing drums in the basement and getting drunk with my friends’_.”

“Idiot,” I grumbled, shaking my head. 

~

And that’s pretty much how the entire day went by, with me complaining about how I would probably be fat in a couple of days if I didn’t get laid instantly, and Dan patting my shoulder and silently agreeing. We went to bed far too early to be cool and got up far too late to be uncool, which resulted in me being grumpy and tired all day.

So, altogether, a really awesomely normal weekend. 

Until Monday rolled around.

Until.


	14. Oh, Calamity!

Alright. 

The second time it happened, I could totally blame Sykes again. 

He was standing there, annoying the shit out of me with his mere presence and just…you know, _being there_. I couldn’t help but feel personally attacked. 

It all got considerably worse, though. When? Well, probably when he walked up to me and gave me a shit-eating grin.

“Can’t get me out of your head, huh?” he asked, biting his right lip ring flirtatiously. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sykes,” I replied coldly and started walking past him, but he once again grabbed my arm and yanked me back in. 

“I think you do,” he said, moving a tiny bit closer. 

“Oh, Joshie,” he whispered, right before – 

~

“This time you _really did_ bang, am I right?” Dan asked with a disgustingly hopeful expression on his face.

“Dan!” I exclaimed, “That’s it, I’m calling Austlan and talking to them. Get out of my house, idiot.”

He gave me a pleading look. “This is just starting to get good, please don’t stop there,” he begged. 

As always, I gave in. 

“Fine. So.” 

~

…he whispered, right before the door to the guidance counsellor’s office slammed open.

“Boys, what are you doing?” the lady called from the doorframe, wearing a smug grin on her face. 

“He was sexually harassing me,” I explained, and she nodded. 

“I’m sure that was exactly what happened.” 

With that, she closed the door again and left me alone with Sykes giving me a small grin and pulling me closer to his chest.

“What the fuck, Sykes?” I asked tiredly. 

He snickered and then he smashed his lips against mine. 

So, if anyone would ask me now, I’d probably claim that I was acting out of self-defence and was trying to wrestle his tongue out of my mouth, but I was, in fact, kissing back, even though I would never, ever admit that. 

It was a pretty long and also kind of bruising kiss. 

My jaw hurt like hell, even after Sykes had drawn away.

“What the fuck, Sykes?” I repeated. 

He just grinned widely and took a step back.

“You want me to shut up and not tell anyone about your sexuality, right?” he asked. 

“Yes.”

“This is my condition,” he said with a smirk. 

“What?” I asked, wrinkling my forehead in confusion. 

“ _This_ is my condition,” he repeated.

“What the fuck? You want me to be your whore?” I asked, too shocked to really process what the fuck was happening here. 

“Basically, yes,” he shrugged. I dropped my head to the guidance counsellor’s desk, closing my eyes and rubbing them with an exasperated sigh emerging from my throat. 

“And there’s no way that you’ll just leave me alone?” I asked with a hopeful expression.

“Nope,” he replied with a shit-eating grin on his face. 

I raised my head up again, looking at him with the most annoyed expression I could muster at the moment. 

“Alright.”

~

“So you basically agreed to be Sykes’ fuckbuddy,” Dan concluded, shoving another crisp into his already full mouth. 

“Yep,” I agreed, taking a sip from the beer that was placed in front of me. I needed alcohol to cope with this situation. 

“This is getting sad, my dear friend,” he said with a knowing smirk. 

“I hate everything,” I informed him and continued drinking myself into a soft daze that would hope-fully last until my next encounter with Oliver Sykes. 

“But hey, you’re getting laid,” he pointed out. “Did Sykes tell you why he wants to bang you?” 

I sighed. 

~

I was already halfway out the door when something crossed my mind and I stopped in my tracks to look at Sykes, who was sitting on his chair with the most amused expression in the world. 

“Could you tell me why?” I asked. 

“Yep,” he chirped. 

“Why, then?”

“Because.” 

I scrunched up my nose. “What?” 

“Because I know you want me, and I don’t really have standards.” 

Damn it, was that guy some kind of mindreader?

“I don’t at all want to bang you, Sykes,” I said sourly. 

“Keep lying to yourself,” he grinned and went back to throwing pencils at the bookshelf above the stupidly fluffy chair the guidance counsellor would usually sit in. 

~

“So you’re basically Sykes’ whore now,” Dan summed the whole story up.

“Yes,” I whined. 

“Wait, don’t you want to bang him?”

“Kind of a lot,” I admitted and went back to drooling over how hot Patrick Swayze looks when he’s dancing. 

“You’re pretty hopeless, Joshua James Alphonse Franceschi,” Dan told me. I pointedly ignored his statement and tried to focus back on the TV screen, where _Dirty Dancing_ was playing for the approximately three-thousandth time in the last week. 

“Fuck my life,” I groaned agreeably, sinking into the fluffy cushions and hugging the remote control to my chest while mouthing along the dialogue between Baby and Johnny that was going down on the screen. 

“Mate, this moping and watching TV has to stop,” Dan said with a sigh. 

I let out another vague sound of agreement. 

“I mean, you got what you’ve wanted all along, so why are you sulking?” he asked.

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, I’m not satisfied with the entire situation.” 

“What?”

“I don’t know! I don’t want to be fuckbuddies with Sykes, I want to be romantic and shit and hold his hand but I also want to whack that wanker across the face, dump him in a ditch and never have to deal with him again, but at the same time I also want to tear his fucking clothes off and do him right then and there.” 

“That sounds quite unhealthy,” Dan pointed out.

“You’re an arsehole,” I told him. 

“It’s fine,” he said reassuringly, patted my shoulder and chugged the remainder of his beer. “You just described every single relationship that I had in the past 17 years.”

“Mate, you only had two relationships, and one of them was in primary school.” 

“Shut up. You get my point, don’t you?” 

I sighed. “Yes, I do get your point. But I don’t know about the relationship thing…”

“Oh my God,” Dan groaned. 

I was starting to feel like he was getting annoyed at my permanent love sickness.


	15. Here We Go Again

_My dick’s still sore from yesterday, wanna give it a massage?_

I gulped after reading Sykes’ text. Really? In math class? This arsehole, he was so going to get it later. 

After discreetly putting away my phone, I tried willing my boner away (didn’t work) and actually paying attention to whatever the teacher was talking about today (didn’t work either). Eventually, I concluded that it was no use trying to pretend and took out my phone again to text Oliver back, only to notice that another text had been sent from his phone. 

_Come over to my house this afternoon_

I stared at my phone in confusion for a couple of minutes. 

Usually, he’d text me something along the lines of ‘let’s have sex on the kitchen floor and come all over the tiles’ or, y’know, anything blunt and dirty, but this text seemed like something absolutely normal, which made it even weirder. Despite the text he’d sent me before, of course. 

Dan raised a questioning eyebrow at me, indicating the “Da fuck’s wrong with you?” I merely rolled my eyes and decided that Sykes was probably just too tired to get himself to punch a coherent sentence into the keys of his phone. Yes. That was the most reasonable explanation. 

After the bell had rung, I gathered all my shit and started making my way towards the exit, only to be yanked back by my wrist. 

“Hey, beautiful,” a smoky voice whispered into my ear, hot breath scratching along the side of my neck. 

“For fuck’s sake, Sykes,” I hissed, “Let’s just go, I can’t stand this fucking school anymore.” 

A light chuckle curled its way into my ear. 

“Sure, baby.” 

Soon enough, the grip around my wrist tightened and I was pulled towards the exit, through a crowd of mainly stupidly American people that pissed me off to a degree I couldn’t even describe with English words anymore. I was shoved into the passenger seat of a car that quickly sped out of the parking lot and to Sykes’ house. 

As soon as the door had slammed shut behind us, Sykes reattached his lips to mine in another violent, heated kiss as his hands started pulling at my shirt. 

“Uhm, Oli, is that you?” someone called from the direction of the kitchen. The voice sounded high and suspiciously teenager-ish, so we basically exploded away from each other. Just in time, to be honest, because only seconds later, a door swung open and a small, fragile-looking boy stumbled out of a room I presumed to be the living room.

“Hey, Tom,” Sykes said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“Who are you?” ‘Tom’ asked with a curiously raised eyebrow. 

“That’s Josh, a friend from school,” Sykes explained with a slightly evil smirk thrown into my direction. “Josh, that’s my brother, Tom.” 

“Hi,” I greeted quietly. Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed what was going on between his older brother and me. 

“Why aren’t you in school?” Sykes asked, voice darkening fatherly. 

“I got sent home,” Tom said quietly, “For starting a fight at lunch.” 

“But why, Tom? That’s fucking stupid. Fighting’s not the answer. Josh, I think you can say a couple of things about that one.” He gave me a pleading look.

I let out an annoyed sigh, but looked at Tom anyway. “No, mate, fighting’s fucking retarded. You only get blood on your hands and restraining orders, but people will remain fucking twats.” 

“Thanks, Joshua,” Sykes said, and with one last warning look at his brother, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards the stairs. We walked into his room and sat on the bed, but Sykes didn’t make a move, so I figured he wanted to say something and gave him time to think about it. 

“I’m not really in the mood, to be honest,” he eventually stated. I nodded understandingly. I wouldn’t want to do it with my (non-existent, but let’s pretend right now) brother downstairs. But as I attempted to get off the bed, Sykes pulled me back by my sleeve. 

“You can stay here for a while, you know,” he said with a slight smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “Just hang out, watch a movie or something. I’d feel kind of bad if I kicked you out now.” 

I raised my eyebrows at him. Oliver Scott Sykes? Feeling bad for something he could do to me? Whoa. What was even fucking happening right now?

“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly. “I can go home, I don’t wanna bother you.” 

“Stay here, you idiot. I’ll even make you food,” Sykes told me. 

“Alright,” I replied with a smile.

~

“You did fucking _what_?” Dan asked, almost dropping his sandwich in surprise. 

“I hung out with Sykes, without getting naked,” I repeated, slumping deeper into the cushions. 

“Oh my fucking _God_ , Josh,” he groaned, lifting his feet up to lie on the armrest of the couch.

“Tell me _every single fucking detail_ ,” Dan demanded. 

I sighed. “I don’t know, it was just kind of strange. He had me talk to his brother and then we just played _Halo_ for a bit.” 

“Aaaaaaaaand?”

“We watched a movie, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders,” I admitted, cheeks burning bright red. 

“Aaaaaaaaand?”

“He kissed me before I left.”

“Aaaaaaaaaand?”

“He said that we should do that again.” I wrinkled my nose in discomfort. “Happy now, you arsehole?” 

“Not yet. Do _you_ want to do it again?” 

“I think we’ve talked about my feelings towards Oliver Sykes often enough that you might just know the answer to that question on your own,” I snapped, curling up on the other end of the couch and directing my gaze towards the black, flat surface of the switched off TV. 

“I want you to say it, out loud.” 

“What is this shit, fucking _Twilight_ or something?” I asked exasperatedly.

“Say it, you fucking pussy,” Dan demanded, poking at my leg. 

“No,” I refused.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Go fuck yourself, Daniel fucking Flint.”

“Josh.” He poked me again.

“Alright! Yes, I want to bone him romantically. Now could you please, for the love of God, shut the fuck up?”

“Knew it,” he muttered and switched on the TV, focusing all his attention on the newest _Gossip Girl_ episode.


	16. Drama Llamas and Shit

I just knew it. Something had to happen. Sykes had to fuck it up somehow. 

Or maybe I’d fucked it up. I didn’t really care. 

All that mattered was that it was fucked up now. 

The whole having sex with Sykes thing had worked out so fucking well. We’d just meet every day, fuck until we both couldn’t see straight anymore, and go home, completely content and happy. 

But no, this had to end. I’d fucking known it from the start. 

~

“So,” Dan said, “What happened this time?” 

“Uhm.” I cleared my throat. “Something really, really stupid.” 

“Tell me more,” Dan sighed, slouching on my couch. 

“Why are you even here?” I asked. “You’re such a fucking idiot.”

“Don’t change the subject, princess. What did you fuck up this time?” 

“Of course you’d just assume that _I_ fucked it up.” 

“Well, because in nine out of ten cases, you _did_ fuck up,” he explained with a knowing expression on his stupid face. 

I rolled my eyes, but started telling him what had happened anyway. 

~

It had started off as a normal day. Nothing special, you know, the usual. I was on my way to lunch and a cold hand started pulling at my wrist, dragging me towards the janitor’s closet. Soon enough, I felt the cold metal of two lip rings digging into the back of my neck. 

Normal. 

But then something happened. 

Something beyond fucking stupid. 

Oh, you’re asking what had happened? 

Yeah, I don’t really feel like telling you, so maybe later.

The important part is that something very, very stupid happened to occur just in the exact same moment Sykes and I were really getting into it, which resulted in a lot of things that appeared to be even stupider. 

You’re probably wondering what the fuck had actually gone down in that janitor’s closet, but I indeed am some sort of arsehole, so I am going to talk about that later. 

The most important part of the whole thing was and still is that in an entire day, I’d gotten rid of a fuck buddy, a possible future good friend and my freedom for a month or so due to being grounded and getting a stack of detention. 

Sounds amazing, huh?

And all of that shit thanks to Oliver Sykes.

~

“You’re not going to tell me anything else, are you?” Dan asked with a sour expression that looked fairly childish in combination with his stupidly bleached blond hair. 

“No, I’m not. Because I’m kind of angry at you right now, not going to lie,” I replied and got up to walk over to the kitchen, where my mother was leaning against the fridge and giving me a smug grin. 

“Yes, mum?” I asked tiredly. 

“Nothing at all, sweetheart,” she replied, turning around while still wearing this irritating smirk. Having forgotten why I’d gotten up in the first place, I just let out a frustrated groan and walked back into the living room, where Dan was shamelessly sprawled out on the couch, drinking soda and eating crisps. 

“You’re such a fucking cunt,” I informed, but plopped down next to him anyway. You can’t choose your friends, anyway. 

“Shut up, Joshua, you’re not one to talk,” he hissed, popping yet another fistful of ready salted crisps into his mouth. “So, are you going to tell me what happened now?” he asked. 

“No, Daniel, I hate you now,” I told him and went back to watching TV, but I couldn’t keep my thoughts from drifting off after a couple of minutes. 

I couldn’t quite bring myself to regret the sudden end of Sykes’ and my ‘relationship’, but I found myself wondering why the fuck he’d freaked out that much. I mean, sure, yeah, sucks and all, but you can’t keep the stick in your arse forever, someday you’ll have to come clean. But whatever, it wasn’t like I cared. I didn’t need fucking _Oliver Sykes_ in my life to be happy, it didn’t matter to me. He’d only been a way for me to pass my time, that was it. Nothing more, nothing less. 

If I kept telling myself that, maybe I’d believe it at some sad, dark point in my life.


	17. Happily Ever - FUCK YOU!

So.

Everything sucked. 

You know that feeling, when you realize that you fucked up big time, but you don’t really have the chance to change shit, and now you have just a lot of time to think about how _badly_ you fucked up? 

Yeah, that. 

The days went by, Sykes and I didn’t talk about…the thing that had happened, and we didn’t talk about anything else. Basically, we just pretended that we didn’t know each other. I whined to Dan about it a lot, watched _Dirty Dancing_ more times than humanly possible to count and gained my usual five mourning pounds from technically living off ice cream and alcohol. 

I’d reached my personal rock bottom when New Year’s rolled around and I spent the entire night watching _Die Hard_ on my own instead of getting drunk with my friends. 

If my mother had been suspicious at that point, she was truly pissed off now, a month later. I hadn’t left my room in a week except for my hourly trips to the bathroom and my daily trips to school. (I called them trips because I basically spent the entire day behind the bleachers, getting high with a large guy called Gabe Saporta who spoke a lot of Spanish between using every curse word known to man. I liked Gabe. He was nice, but not Oliver Sykes. Goddammit, I am such a fucking sap.)

Dan kept punching me in the stomach and telling me to get over myself and finally tell him what had even happened between Sykes and me, but I couldn’t find the courage to tell him. 

Until.

Until. 

~

“Joshua James Alphonse Franceschi,” Dan pressed through gritted teeth, expression fairly annoyed and eyebrows drawn close together. 

“You are going to stop sulking,” he hissed, hitting me with a pillow straight across the face. “You wrote the entire English essay yourself so you wouldn’t have to talk to Sykes, you fell asleep in a container of ice cream yesterday and you haven’t changed you clothes in 36 hours.” 

His jaw tightened noticeably as he gave me a disappointed look. “Either you’re going to get your arse up, take a shower, brush your teeth and come to Aaron’s party with me or you can find yourself some new friends.” 

I knew it was an empty threat. That’s why I jumped up and ran towards the bathroom in lightning speed. No other reason. I wasn’t genuinely afraid that I’d lose my best friend over moping because of a guy from _Yorkshire_. Really. I’m not a loser, please believe me. 

After taking a shower and throwing myself into a pair of skinny jeans whose tightness indicated growing love handles on my body, I walked out of my room and presented myself. I almost looked like I hadn’t spent a month moping.

~

Naturally, the party sucked balls.

I hated all this with a burning passion. 

Of course I would be leaning against the wall, desperately holding onto my second beer of the night and waiting for someone to put me out of my misery. In retrospect, losing Dan’s friendship would have been the more pleasant choice. 

And if my life hadn’t been bad enough as it was, some random person had to walk up to me, give me a lopsided grin and press another red solo cup filled with an undefinable liquid into the palm of my hand.

“Hey, you’re the one that got caught with his dick up Oliver Sykes’ ass, right?” he asked with the most awful American accent. 

“This conversation is over,” I informed him and started walking away, but he yanked me back in, his grin widening impossibly. 

“Hey, sorry man. Just trying to start up some small-talk, you looked like you were about to cry,” he explained. 

I wrinkled my nose in discomfort. “I’d prefer if we could talk about something that’s non-Sykes-related, thanks you.” 

“Sure thing, dude.” He gave me another smug grin. “I’m Mike.” 

I looked Mike up and down with an incredulous expression on my face. He looked like he was torn somewhere between being a member of a Mexican gang, a rapper and a screamer, with ridiculous baggy jeans and a stupid snapback only covering one of his ears, but also a Slipknot tank and a lip piercing. I felt like he could be an interesting person.

“Josh,” I replied hesitantly and took a sip of my beer, not quite ready to even smell whatever Mike had given me. 

“So, what happened between you and Sykes?” he asked. 

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” I hissed. 

“You’re free to leave if you want to,” Mike told me.

I sighed and hesitantly took a sip from the red solo cup, hoping it would get me drunk enough to forget that I’d ever met Mike.


	18. If Only He Knew

I didn’t remember a thing in the morning, luckily. 

Terribly hung over, I walked home from Aaron’s house in the morning and resumed to my usual moping routine. 

Around three, I got a text from a person named Mike. 

_morning beauty, sleep well?_

I groaned and hit my head against the wall several times. I vaguely remembered pouring my heart out to this random Hispanic person I’d only just met yesterday. 

Merely curious, I picked up the phone and texted him back. 

_we didn’t have sex, did we?_

Seconds later, my phone buzzed again. 

_nope, im not gay in the slightest_

I rolled my eyes. 

_fuck off_

_still lovesick n hungover?_

I sighed.

_arsehole._

Eventually, I decided against being a dick to a person that could possibly be my friend. 

_maybe a little_

~

Mike had come over. 

I didn’t know why. 

He’d offered chocolate ice cream, and I didn’t want to say no. 

So here we were, sitting on my couch, with ice cream containers on our laps, trying to figure out how to get back at Sykes. 

“Yeah, but he fucking left after the counsellor walked in on us,” I whined, only prompting a shrug from Mike. 

“He’s an ass, we all know that. You gotta tell him that, though,” Mike told me. 

“Tell him what?”

“That he can’t leave like that,” he insisted. 

“Yeah…”

“Yeah. Look, dude. My brother was in a pretty similar situation once. This guy he was boning, he was, like, super-Christian and shit, and he kind of just freaked out and didn’t talk to him for weeks.”

“And what did your brother do?”

“Vic? He punched the guy across the face and told him not to fuck with him anymore.”

“And what are they doing now?”

“Oh, I think they’re getting married.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t really see that in the future.” 

“Just talk to Sykes and tell him he can’t treat you like that.”   
I nodded. “Maybe I will.”


	19. You Threw the First Punch, Now It's Your Turn to Run!

“So, something happened,” I said. 

Dan let out a groan. “Who did you punch this time?” he asked.

I coughed awkwardly. “Sykes,” I admitted. 

He sighed. “Again?” 

“Yes…” 

“What happened? Tell Uncle Dan,” he requested. 

“Stop calling yourself ‘Uncle Dan’, it’s beyond fucking creepy,” I pointed out.

“Whatever. Don’t try to change the subject.”

“Alright, fine.”

~

It had started off as another completely normal Friday. 

I’d slipped on the asphalt near our stupid neighbour’s front yard, she most likely suspected me to have performed some sort of satanic ritual on her freshly mowed grass. 

I’d spilled half a cup of tea on my shirt, but it didn’t matter anyway since I’d retreated to wearing my pyjamas to breakfast. 

I’d hit my head against the wall at least three times before the bell had rung, signalizing that I only had a couple of seconds to haul my arse to the guidance counsellor’s office. 

Sykes and I both didn’t speak a single fucking word during guidance counselling, or, you know, at any other occasion, almost driving the lady to insanity. 

But it all sort of went wrong as soon as the counselling session was over. 

Sykes and I idly trudged out of the office one after another, both covering our yawning mouths with our hands and pointedly not looking at each other.

I’d just decided to go get some ice cream on my way home when another thought crossed my mind. 

Why was I even putting up with Sykes’ shit? 

Why did I let him push me around as soon as shit had gotten serious? 

This fucking idiot! Who did he think he was? I liked to think that we’d at least become friends during getting naked together regularly! But no, he could just leave me alone like a piece of shit, dump me in a ditch and never look at me again. 

Oh hell fucking no.

After speaking a silent prayer that Mike hadn’t been lying when he’d told me about his mysterious brother Vic and the little Christian guy, I walked up to Sykes and gave him the angriest look my small British self could muster, determined to confront him.

But when I opened my mouth, nothing came out, as expected. 

Sykes just gave me an odd look and proceeded walking towards the exit. 

I finally woke up and decided that I wasn’t having any of his shit today. 

“No,” I yelled.

I earned no response from Sykes.

“No,” I repeated, louder this time around.

“What?” 

“You fucking slut,” I hissed angrily. “You think you can just ignore me? And why? Because a fucking teacher walked in on us fucking!”

He raised his eyebrows incredulously, taking a step closer.

“You’re yelling at me for this after _a month_?” he asked tauntingly. 

“Fuck you!” I screamed. 

And punched him across the face.

~

Dan sighed and buried his face in his hands. 

“You’re an idiot, Josh,” he informed me. 

I nodded. “I know. It gets worse.”

~

After my fist had collided with Sykes’ face, I expected a blow from his side. But it never came. He didn’t punch me back, just stared at me with a blank expression that hinted a vague shade of disappointment. 

I felt bad immediately, so I punched him again, desperate to prompt some sort of reaction. But no. He merely stood there, looking at me with an even, almost sad face. 

I shook my head exasperatedly, turned around and ran straight home, where I called Dan straighta-way to tell him what had happened. 

~

“You fucking idiot,” Dan groaned, sliding down on the couch slightly. 

“I know.” I sighed deeply and curled up in the comfort of my couch.


	20. We Can Live Like Josh and Oli if You Want

“I’m sorry for punching you in the face,” I said. 

I let out a sigh.

“I’m really sorry for being such a prick.”

I shook my head, slowly but surely getting annoyed with myself for how much I was fussing over this.

“I shouldn’t have done that, and maybe we can go back to occasionally making out again?” 

Oh my God, that was terrible. I hit my head against the mirror on my wall a couple of times, took a step back and looked at my reflection. 

“Come on, Josh, you aren’t that much of a sissy,” I told myself. 

After a few more pathetically failed attempts, I gave up and plopped down on my bed, deciding that I’d just think of something tomorrow. I’d have enough time to make up some cheesy excuse during the first couple of periods. 

Eventually, I settled for calling Dan, who would surely be able to give me annoyingly good advice and comfort me, even in the slightest bit.

“Hey, arsehole,” he greeted, right after picking up the phone. 

“Hi Dan,” I replied, unfazed by his insult. We were always being so nice with each other, anyway. 

“Where’s the fire?” he asked. I could hear the muffled sounds of chewing and crunching, so he was probably stuffing his face with some kind of cereal. He’d probably expected me calling him to talk his fucking ear off. 

“I feel like a cunt,” I said bluntly, chewing on my lower lip uncomfortably. 

“You _are_ a cunt,” he replied, laughing loudly into the receiver.

“Yeah, but now I feel like it,” I explained. 

“Why do you feel like a cunt?” he questioned, sighing deeply.

“’Cause I punched Sykes in the face.”

“Why did you punch Sykes in the face?” 

“Because he was provoking me.”

“What the fuck, Joshua?” 

“I don’t know, I just,” I groaned. “I don’t fucking know. I was pissed off, he was pissing me off.” I whined. 

“What?”

“I don’t know!” I repeated. “But it probably had something to do with me calling him a slut.”

“Oh my God, Josh,” Dan exclaimed. “You are such an arsehole! Weren’t you just telling me, like, three weeks ago, that you’re madly in love with Oliver Sykes?” 

“Yes, but –“

“Shut up, Josh, and apologise. You’re being a big cunt.” 

“I know, but –“

“Shut the fuck up.” 

“Alright, alright! I’ll talk to him in school tomorrow.”

“That’s a good boy,” Dan said warmly. “Alright, I think I have to go. Kayla from the cheerleading team is here and she kind of wants to bone.”

“Bye, Dan,” I replied.

“See you in school,” he said hurriedly and hung up, leaving me to feel like an absolute and utter cunt. 

~

The first couple of periods seemed fucking never ending. 

I was just sitting there, feeling like shit, and the clock was ticking away seconds in the most ridicu-lously slow pace, internally mocking me. 

I told myself that I was going to talk to Sykes at lunch, but deep down, I knew that I’d chicken out and wait until the guidance counselling session to crawl on my knees and beg for forgiveness. 

It probably wouldn’t work, anyway.

“Jesus, Josh,” Alan said, shaking his head. “You should quit beating yourself up over this, you can’t change what you’ve already fucked up.”

I scrunched up my nose. “Thanks, arsehole.” Goodness. Ever since he and Austin had finally gotten together, Alan thought of himself as some kind of relationship guru; it was annoying the fuck out of me. 

“Leave me alone with my misery,” I added with a groan and buried my face in my hands.

“Whatever floats your boat, princess,” Alan replied and went back to pretending to pay attention to the teacher while actually sexting Austin under the table. He wasn’t being exactly subtle about it (by ‘it’, I am referring to his boner), to be honest. 

~

I was going to do this. I could do this. I only had to walk up to him, open my mouth and say that I was sorry for punching him in the face. It wasn’t that hard. 

“Oliver,” I said awkwardly, only for him to ignore me completely. 

“Oliver,” I repeated, this time a bit louder. 

“What?” he asked, turning away from the conversation he’d been having. 

“I…” I started, biting my lip and fiddling uncomfortably. “I’m sorry for being such an idiot.”

He raised an incredulous eyebrow at me. 

“You’re what?”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, wrinkling my nose in discomfort. 

“You’re sorry,” he said dumbly. “For punching me.” 

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I repeated once more, starting to feel a bit ridiculous. “For punching you. I shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t a nice thing to do.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, it wasn’t.”

“So, can we be, like, friends?” I asked with a hopeful smile.

“Uh, sure we can.” He bit his lip. “But I don’t want to.”

I let out a groan. “This is not a movie, ‘being friends’ is the code for, y’know, hanging out, occasionally getting naked together. What do you say?” 

“Like, friends with benefits again?” he asked, eyebrows drawing together tightly with visible confu-sion.

“Nah, mate. I was thinking,” I said, awkwardly hesitating. “Maybe. Uhm. The…dating…thing?” 

“Dating thing?”

I groaned again, frustration eventually surfacing. I finally decided to grow a pair, though, and finally tell Sykes what’s been waiting on the tip of my tongue for weeks now.

“Do you want to go out with me?” 

He didn’t reply for a couple of seconds, and I swear, it was the definition of eternity. The awkward look on his face kind of told me that he was going to laugh and refuse to ever go out with me, but I guess I was pretty lucky.

“Yeah, sure,” he answered, his lips curling into a slight smile.

“Cool,” I said, and grinned as well. 

“Welcome to the family,” someone said behind me, and I turned to look at a mop of bleached blond hair and a smug expression on the face below. “You’ll need a lot of patience if you really want to go out with Josh.” 

“Fuck you, Dan Flint,” I laughed, averting my gaze and looking back at Oliver, whose smile had wid-ened. His black lip rings were shimmering slightly in the shitty cafeteria light, and his emo fringe didn’t seem that emo anymore. 

“I do have a lot of patience if people don’t punch me,” he said, giving me a shit-eating grin. I didn’t even bother to blush. 

“You don’t have any patience at all, sweetheart,” I said. 

“Whatever, you love me anyway,” he replied, taking my hand and intertwining our fingers. 

“Yeah, I kind of do,” I whispered to myself.


	21. Epilogue: Still a Fucking Wanker

Alright. 

Maybe we were making out in the classroom right after English class to piss off our English teacher who was, in fact, still a fucking wanker. 

Oliver had trapped me against the wall, pressing his lips against mine almost violently as we smiled into a bruising kiss. 

We couldn’t seem to get enough of each other. 

“Oliver, Joshua,” our English teacher said, his voice loud, but surprisingly, not at all annoyed, pissed off or even disgusted. 

So he wasn’t a homophobe, after all. I can’t say that I wasn’t a little disappointed. 

“See you after school, baby,” Oliver whispered into my ear, biting the earlobe slightly. Then he left, but not without giving my crotch another firm squeeze. 

I gave him a shit-eating grin, which he returned cheekily as he pranced out the door in a particularly gay way.

“Joshua,” the English teacher said, just as I was picking up my backpack and starting to walk towards the exit as well.

“Yes?” I asked in a bored tone. 

“Is your relationship going well?” he questioned with a smug expression.

“Uhm, well, yes?” I replied confusedly. 

“That’s good. That was my plan from the start, you know,” he explained.

I raised my eyebrows at him. 

“I wanted to set you up from the first time I saw you walking through that door,” he said.

My English teacher, who was a gigantic wanker, setting me up with Oliver Sykes? America was so fucking weird. 

“Goodbye, Mr Green,” I said, shaking my head as I walked out the door. 

Maybe my English teacher wasn’t that much of a wanker, after all. 

Oh God, who was I kidding?

He’d always remain a fucking wanker.

But for now, I could only agree with his opinion. Oliver Sykes and I were, in fact, a perfect match. 

Hopefully, this shit would last.

But the beautiful thing about the whole situation was that, for now, I didn’t have to worry about it. I had an Oliver, and an Oliver was honestly the only thing I needed at the moment.


End file.
